Unauthorised huts demolished in Kailali

Post Report

TIKAPUR, Aug 8 - Kailali district forest office has said nearly 2,500 houses and huts have been demolished as they were built in the forest areas which were occupied illegally by squatters in different parts of the district.

The illegal occupants of forest areas were removed permanently over the past 10 days from Shreepur, Geta, Malakheti and Urma VDCs after an all-party gathering ratified the "Encroachment Control Programe" about a month ago.

Similarly, 21 people including chairman of Sukumbasi Utthan Samaj, Kailali, Chandra Bahadur Saud, have been kept in custody by the District Forest Office on the charge of encroachment of forest area. Preparations are underway to file a case against them.

In the past, about 3,500 illegal settlers were removed by the office, but no permanent solution was found. The office has now mobilised the support of local people in such activities and it has proved effective, according to the office.

This is the district where the largest area of forest land has been encroached by squatters. A total of 25,000 hectares of forest land has been occupied by illegal settlers in this district according to the forest office.

After the Forest Encroachment Control Programme had been started, 752 hectares of forest has been freed from the squatters after removing them and destroying the crops grown by them.

In Hasuliya VDC, the occupied area was left by the squatters after the Maoist workers threatened them. Following their eviction from the forest, locals planted trees in nearly 500 bighas of forest land.

Forest officer Navaraj Baral believes that it will be possible to remove the illegal occupants of the forests after the commitment of all parties is received although this is a difficult task to achieve. He also informed that there was no political pressure these days in favour of the illegal occupants unlike in the past.

Landslide victims deprived of relief aid

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MYAGDI, Aug 8 - The landslide victims in Myagdi are deprived of adequate relief from the government except for a few thousand rupees for carrying out the last rites of those people perished in the fatal natural disaster 11 days ago.

More than 20 people, five of them from the same family, were killed after they were buried in three landslides that occurred in Arman, Barangja and Babiyachaur VDCs.

Secretary of the Arman VDC, Taranath Adhikari, said that no government agency has yet visited the landslide site to assess the property lost in the natural disaster. All the homeless families have been taking refuge in their relatives with a hope of assistance from the government side.

Despite the official announcement of providing Rs 10,000 to each of the deceased for their last rites, the victims said that they received no assistance so far.

The landslide victims also accused the government of not taking any initiative to find out the people missing in the rubble. Stench of the dead animals and buried people has invited diarrhoea and other forms of diseases in the villages, said Sarala KC, a health worker.

KC said that more than 20 people were suffering from diarrhoea in Arman VDC alone and medicine available at the local health post was not adequate to cure all the sick people. She said that there was high possibility of epidemic in the area unless the bad odour was controlled in time.

Nandalal Sharma whose entire family members were killed in the landslide is now helpless with no more relief coming from the government.

Others who were seriously injured in the natural calamity have not yet received treatment. Saraswoti Sharma, who was one of the survivors, said that doctors in Pokhara hospital sent her back home without treating her properly.

Drought affects foodgrain production in Dhankuta

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DHANKUTA, Aug 8- Foodgrain production in Dhankuta district is likely to decline by nearly 50 percent this year due to drought.

The district experienced rainfall for three days only last week after a prolonged drought.

Most of the paddy fields in the district are lying uncultivated. The task of sowing paddy had started again after the rainfall though belatedly, but the drought has started again adversely affecting the paddy sown previously and recently by the farmers.

Of the total 40,723 hectares of arable land in the district, 8,660 hectares of land has irrigation facility. Only 31.11 percent of the households are capable of producing foodgrain sufficient to feed their family round the year if there is timely rainfall.

As a result of the prolonged drought, paddy seed grown by the farmers in their seedbed has grown useless for transplantation. Farmers have therefore grazed their cattle on the paddy seedbed.

The fields remain uncultivated in the upper belt of the district due to drought. In the lower region, farmers could have transplanted paddy if the recent rain had lasted for a longer period.

Similarly, maize production has also been affected by droungt by 60 percent in most of the villages. Other crops like groundnut, pulses of different varieties, soyabeans and beans have also suffered a serious setback as most farmers have been unable to sow these crops.

The summer paddy production in the lower region which has been harvested recently has also declined by 40 percent due to drought. In the past, the quantity of rainfall amounted up to 124 millilitres but there was only 27.8 millilitres rainfall last week.

"There will be no foodgrain production this year. We must obtain loan on interest from rich people to get food," said Hari Limbu of Tamkhuwa VDC.

Like Hari Limbu, most of the farmers in the district are also compelled to borrow money from the rich people to buy foodgrain this year.

RNA sets up camp in Pyuthan

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PYUTHAN, Aug 8 - The Royal Nepal Army (RNA) has recently been mobilised in this hill district of the mid-western region to execute the Integrated Security and Development Package (ISDP), according to the District Administration Office.

The government has implemented the ISDP in the Maoist- affected districts in order to carry out various development programmes in an integrated manner.

Chief District Officer, Rameshwor Ghimire, said that an RNA contingent of 200 soldiers from Surkhet on Saturday established its camp at a hill top of the Ramdi Village Development Committee. The RNA force is led by Major Sanjaya Jha.

Pyuthan is one of the Maoist insurgency-affected districts in the region. He,however, declined to elaborate about the RNA’s specific activities in the days ahead.

Sources said that the army can watch most of the Maoist movements from the area as it is situated in a strategic location.

A local businessman said that he felt secure after the army arrived at his village. He, however, said that the army personnel had not yet contacted with the local people.

Meanwhile, the Maoist guerrillas have escalated their propaganda campaign even in Khalanga bazaar, the district headquarters, and its neighbourhoods taking advantage of the ceasefire announcement.

One man’s effort to save alma mater

Post Reporter

KATHMANDU, Aug 8 – Danda Raj Pahari, a mechanical engineer from the Fachhoschule Karsruhe, Germany, has proven to be a true philanthropist. Moved by the poor state of affairs of his alma mater, the Tal Barahi High School in Pokhara, he took up the task of constructing a 12-room building for the High School last year.

And, by July this year he was able to solicit handsome Rs. 2.5 million to the school’s construction. Money came in a pretty innovative manner. The amount of Rs.1,210,000 he personally contributed was from the proceeds of the book on Nepali cuisine he had authored in Germany.

There were other contributions as well. The German Embassy in Nepal (with Rs. 306,000 worth of electrical equipment), kids at the Geischwister School in Germany (Rs. 40,000), Eichendorfschule (Rs 100,000), the Comenious Gymnasium (Rs 150,000) and Bed Nath Pahari from London contributed Rs 220,000.

Some other German families too made personal contributions. The gesture initiated a chain of events. The school itself recently organized a yajna to collect money to narrow down the short fall in the Rs11.4 million project. The response from the local community in Pokhara was overwhelming. People flocked in thousands to the yajna and made huge contributions. The school authorities are believes to have raised roughly 7.8 million rupees till date for the construction. The school is already half way through construction. Now the school will not have to be bogged down by the lack of physical facilities.

Pahari is positively impressed by the outcome of his efforts. "The School’s 40 year old legacy just couldn’t go down the drain for the lack of a building, I thought," says Pahari, adding "so I made a concerted effort to help the school."

The headmaster Mr. Shyam Pant is pretty upbeat about what Pahari has done for the school. It is now upon the local guardians and the students along with the teachers to make this a model school in the region. Pahari’s efforts have given a fresh lease of life to the dilapidated School.

Construction of Hilsa-Simikot road completed

By Gopal Tiwari

KATHMANDU, August 8 - Twenty two kilometer of the total 62 kilometer Hilsa-Simikot road linking south Chinese Autonomous province of Tibet has been completed in the Karnali District under the Food for Work Programme of the World Food Programme (WFP).

Construction of the road under the Food for Work Programme which began a couple of months ago has picked up a faster pace in Karnali district, the only district in the country not linked with other parts by road transport. The construction of the road from Hilsa to Muchu has so far been completed. The District Development Committee (DDC) maintains that once the road is completed, it will connect remote Simikot with Taklakot -a local market bordering Chinese Autonomous province of Tibet. Of the total of 16,289 bags of rice each weighing 35 kg,kept for food programmes for works, 11,396 bags have so far been distributed.

Speaking to The Kathmandu Post over telephone, Jivan Bahadur Shahi, DDC President of Karnali said that given the present rate of disbursement of ration, the construction of road will complete in two-three years.

The four-and-half meter wide road will be the first road joining the North-South of the district, he added.

Refugees barred from working in local weaving industries

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URLABARI (Morang), Aug 8 - Construction Workers’ Union (CUPEC) today stopped the Bhutanese refugees, from Shanishchare Camp in Morang, from working in local weaving industries, the refugees said.

A total of 256 refugee workers were sacked from unidentified numbers of weaving industries based at Pathari Bazaar.

CUPEC Nepal central member Kumar Chamling said that dismissing refugees from various industries is a nation-wide movement.

Officials at CUPEC said that the unauthorised workers from the refugee camps were sacked because they were found creating unemployment for the local Nepali population.

"After they were sacked, 26 weaving industries have prohibited the refugees from visiting even the Pathari market," they said.

A local industrialist Om Prasad Subedi said they were allowed to visit Mangalbare market twice a week.

They said that as the refugees need not worry about bread and butter, they offer their labour at a cheap rate too low to be un acceptable to the local workers.

Various international charity organisations have been providing food and shelter to the refugees for about a decade now.

District Administration Office, Morang, had ordered District Police Offices in January to take into custody any refugees if found working outside the camp.

On the other hand, the refugees in the camp are suffering from various diseases, the refugees said.

Yogesh Basnet, a refugee said that three refugees were suffering from encephalitis in the camp.

Awareness Campaign helps health conciousness among rural women

Prakash Adhikari

SHIKHARBESI (Nuwakot), Aug 8 - Uneducated rural women living in 32 VDCs east of the district headquarters have become aware and conscious that they should take their children to the health centres instead of consulting the ‘dhami jhankris’, thanks to the "Mother and Child Survival Programme".

The Mother and Child Survival Programme was launched in the 32 VDCs through Ilaka Health Post.

The rural women here have now become aware that it is necessary to administer medicine regularly to the patients instead of experimenting with dhami jhankris when someone falls ill in the family.

Sonu Tamang of Samundratar VDC-3 who was afraid of taking her children to the health post for treatment in the past assuming that they would die if given medicine runs to the nearest health post these days the moment she discovers that there is something wrong with her children. Sonu remembers her past. "We didn’t know that a patient should be taken to the health centre for treatment. We would directly go to dhami jhankris," she says.

Such utter ignorance was prevalent among the residents living in the eastern belt of the district, particularly among the Tamang community living in the higher elevations of Samundratar, Shikharbesi, Rautbesi and Ghyangbesi VDCs.

The awareness among the rural women was created by the "Mother and Child Survival Programme" implemented by District Red Cross Society through Ilaka Health Post over the last two years. The inter-personal communication and health related adult education were instrumental in generating this consciousness among the village women.

A resident of Rautbesi Phul Maya Bika says the Mother and Child Survival programme has been gaining popularity among the rural women.

Bika has received training as ward volunteer and a mid-wife. She has helped nearly 20 women during child-delivery over the last two years. She points out that a significant change has been noticed among the rural women after the programme was introduced two years ago.

Trained rural women are seen busy saving the lives of pregnant women during delivery and helping to get the children cured of pneumonia and other common ailments by distributing medicines. They recollect the past when these common diseases were considered harbingers of death and are doing their best to help the community by making use of the knowledge and skill they have learnt.

AHW of Shikharbesi Ilaka Health Post Krishna Bahadur Adhikari says there has been a drastic change in the health status of the people now in comparison with that of the past.

Rural Health Worker Bashu Dev Acharya says, at one time there was shortage of cremation ground for the deads from Shikharbesi, Samundratar and Ghyangphedi, but the situation now is different.

District Red Cross President Ram Prasad Bhosi said the programme run by sub-health posts in the 32 VDCs through the Ilaka Health Posts of Kharanitar, Shikharbesi, Samundratar, Rauttbesi and Likhu VDCs in Nuwakot district targets women health workers and women volunteers.

Shikarbesi VDC chairman Raj Kumar Pundit claims that the child mortality rate and deaths of women from child-birth complications have declined drastically in the VDC.

According to a 1996 Health Ministry report, the child mortality rate that year was 94 per 1,000. Government and Non-Government Organisations in the district now claim that there has been 40 percent decline in child mortality rate as compared to the figure of 1996 because of various programmes launched by different Govt Organisations and NGOs.