Gopalpur (Bhagalpur), May 31: Hundreds of flood victims today staged a daylong dharna in front of the Gopalpur police station after no confirmation was given to them about chief minister Nitish Kumar’s visit here.

Villagers had invited Nitish to inspect the ongoing flood prevention work on Ganga. He was scheduled to visit the nearby Dharhara hamlet on June 6.

“We want a probe by the chief minister. We have faith in god, on the judiciary and Nitish,” a villager sitting on the dharna said.

Villagers of Ishmilpur, Bindtoli, Buddhuchowk, Saidpur and many other hamlets, who have been subjected to rapid erosion of land by Ganga had decided to invite Nitish to the locality to show him the flood prevention work being carried out there.

“The flood prevention work is going on at a snail’s pace and the quality of work is very poor. We want the chief minister to visit this place so that such work could pick up pace,” said Ganga Mandal, a resident of Buddhuchowk.

Nitish would visit Dharhara, an eco-friendly village where a sapling is planted on the birth of a girl child, some 5km from the site where the flood prevention work is being carried out.

The state’s Ganga Flood Control Committee has sanctioned Rs 12.93 crore for reconstruction of spurs (tagging bridge) numbers 4, 5, 6, 7 and Rs 3.22 crore for another two spurs number 8 and 9 for financial year 2011-12.

The villagers alleged that the work carried out by state’s water resources department was substandard.

“The deadline for completing the reconstruction work of the spurs was May 31 but even the nose-cutting work of the spurs has not been completed. Second, reconstruction work on spurs number 8 and 9 has not been started yet,” said Bimal Kumar, a resident of Ishmilpur.

Many villagers said even after the recent instruction of water resources minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary, who inspected the work on May 5, the work pace has not picked up.

N.K. Singh, chief engineer (in-charge), however, claimed that construction of spurs was going on war footing. “The entire work would be completed before June 15,” he said. Another additional engineer at the work site admitted that despite availability of materials work was going on in slow pace but did not give any appropriate reason for the delay.