Freed Kamaiyas return to landlords

Post Report

DANG, Jan 22 - Most of the ex-Kamaiyas (bonded-labourers) have returned to their traditional jobs, one week after the annual Maghi festival.

Although the Government announced Kamaiya liberation from the semi-slavery system in five Terai districts on 17 July 2000, ex-Kamaiyas have recommenced to work as bonded labourers and kamlari (baby-sitters and shepherdesses), reports received here said.

The ex-Kamaiyas openly say that there has been no change in their situation since the abolition of the ancient semi-slavery system.

Sundar Chaudhary from Baruwa Gaon says that many ex-Kamaiyas, like him, have renewed their annual contracts with the local landlords. "Nobody will feed us unless we work," Chaudhary, an ex-Kamaiya, told The Kathmandu Post.

Unlike in previous years, the local landlords are coming to ex-Kamaiya’s homes and renewing their annual contracts, Maya Sharma from Sonpur said.

According to Dang’s Land Reforms Office, there are only 158 ex-Kamaiya families in Dang. Bharat Kumar Budhathoki, chief of the Dang-based Land Reforms Office, said that no ex-Kamaiyas were available to become involved in income-generation programmes under the Kamaiya Livelihood Programme, sponsored by the Government.

No organisations have provided authentic statistics of the kamlaries, ex-Kamaiya children working for landlords without any remuneration.

Dozens of ex-Kamiayas at Tharu-majority Majheriya village have agreed to work on the landlords’ land on the condition that they pay the landlords half the crops they grow annually. "If the ex-Kamaiyas go back to living with their landlords, they do not have to live in any makeshift camps at the mercy of other people," Bhagati Chaudhary from Chaulahi village says.

Vice-President of the Bijauri VDC, Keshav Sharma, said many ex-Kamaiyas have turned to be working farmers.

However, the number of people looking for Kamlaris as baby sitters and domestic servants from outside the district seemed very low during this year’s Maghi, Vice- President Sharma observed.

Former Kamaiyas do not hold out much hope for the government’s plan that envisages rehabilitating 55 ex-Kamaiya families on public lands.

Although the Land Reforms Office has set aside five bighas of land near Tribhuvan Municipality with a view to settling 40 ex-Kamaiya families from the district, no families as yet have been settled on the land.

Experts for urban good governance

Post Report

KABHRE, Jan 22 - Urban development experts today discussed on various ways to save the unplanned urbanisation and to steer it towards healthy, and positive urban growth.

Sri Husnaini Sofjan, the programme manager of The Urban Governance Initiative (TUGI) said, "if the people cannot manage their cities, they have little hope in managing their own future."

She was presenting a working paper on Urban Governance: Global Vision and Local Needs, at a two-day national seminar on Urban Governance, organised by TUGI, Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) and Kathmandu 2020.

She said that five principles, a Panchasheel approach: socially just, ecologically sustainable, politically participatory, economically-productive and culturally vibrant — can help the planners to shape the future of the growing cities.

She urged the planners to think lateral, everywhere, action, structural, and long-term to promote good urban governance.

TUGI is a UNDP project to help local governments to make cities in the Asia Pacific more lively.

Dr Ernst Reichenback of UDLE/GTZ recalled his experiences that he gained during his over five-year long stay in Nepal. He presented some good experiences and critical evaluation of experiences here.

And Sumitra M Gurung, Chairperson of Lumanti, an NGO, working in the field of providing shelter to homeless people, shared her experiences in preparing ‘report cards’ of Lalitpur and Butwal municipalities.

Deputy Mayor of KMC Bidur Mainali presented the initiatives of the Municipality Association of Nepal on Urban Good Governance.

Case studies of KMC, and municipalities of Nepalgunj, Biratnagar, Dhulikhel and Birendra nagar were also presented at the programme.

Compulsory primary education a ‘failure’

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Jan 22 – As the ruling Nepali Congress leaders continued to advocate Compulsory Primary Education (CEP) in its on-going 10th general convention educationist today billed the programme a "fail".

Educationist Dr Tirtha Raj Khaniya said that the programme has remained merely an election slogan and it has no meaning at all. "The donor agents’ criteria have made us failure," he said.

The government launched the programme with a commitment to confer primary education to every child of school-going age seven years ago.

Initially, the government brought the basic and Primary Education Project in Ilam, Chitwan, Mahendranagar, Syangja and Surkhet as provisional project. The Ninth Plan intends to extend this project into 25 different district by the end of this plan.

From the last fiscal year, international donor agents like DANIDA, UNICEF, World Bank, NAROD and others stopped allocating budget for this project as this was annexed in the government’s regular programme.

Director General of Department of Education, Chuman Singh Basnet said that new programmes would be brought forward only after analyzing the results from the districts where compulsory education was practiced.

The department, however, has not allocated any budget or plan since last two years.

Basnet added, "Studies have been done on the educational statistics, house survey in the concerned districts and awareness programmes are also completed."

Educationist Dr Mana Prasad Wagle said that the immature working strategy of both the government as well as the donors is responsible behind the failure of CEP. "The fate of the programme was reflected in our tendency to depend upon the foreigners, avoiding homework, consultants with vested interest," he said.

Acting Director of Centre for Educational Research of Investigation and Development (CERID) said that the concerned personnel were not serious enough to make CEP a success from all sides.

Arjun Bahadur Bista, then chief of Basic and Primary Education Project, said the programme dwindled because of the government’s lack of vision.

According to statistics, only 68 percent of the total school going children are enroled in schools. And among those who are deprived of school education, 44 percent are girl children.

Call for coordination among vegetable farmers

Post Report

BHADRAPUR, Jan 22 - A two-day discussion programme held here recently concluded that there must be coordination among farmers, middlemen and businessmen to resolve various problems being faced by the vegetable business.

Thirty-three people including vegetable-producing farmers, middlemen, businessmen and agricultural technicians from Panchthar, Ilam, Dhankuta, Tehrathum and Jhapa districts participated in the discussion, which was divided into four groups.

According to the chief of Jhapa Agriculture Development Office, Dwarika Dahal, the discussion covered various topics related to vegetable farming and marketing, including categorization of vegetables, marketing procedures, middlemen for marketing, coordination among businessmen, vegetables to be sent to other districts, the current condition of grading, condition of import and export, analysis of the condition of packaging and so on.

It was also agreed that more benefit could be derived if out-of-season vegetables were exchanged between the hilly and Tarai areas.

Farmers were incurring losses in vegetables as they were cramming them into a ‘doko’(basket) as they took their goods to the market and also due to lack of proper grading.

Efforts to resolve such problems were discussed. Provision of cold stores at different places are imperative and efforts should be made to convince customers that insecticides are not used in growing vegetables in order to reap greater benefit and arrangement for proper packaging system be made to make sure that freshness of the vegetables was not compromised.

About 70 percent of the vegetable needs for the people in Jhapa district was currently being met by importing vegetables from India.

‘Confiscated narcotic drugs misused’

Post Report

KATHMANDU,Jan 22- A senior police officer has disclosed the fact that the confiscated narcotic drugs are being misused by policemen themselves.

Speaking at a program in the capital Saturday, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) at the Drugs Legislation Enforcement Unit (DLEU), Raviraj Thapa, said, "The policemen themselves are sometimes found to be engaged in the transaction of the confiscated narcotic drugs." Adding, "The drug-mafia somehow manages to replace the drugs being taken to the laboratory for test with fake samples, in collusion with some unscrupulous policemen."

SSP Thapa complained that, many governmental and non-governmental authorities have the tendency of showing little interest in curbing the drug trade if they don’t receive foreign financial support. "In such a situation, the responsibility of the police force in controlling the drugs menace is obviously undermined," he said.

Active in the DLEU for almost a decade, SSP Thapa said, "A complete statistics of the drug addicts is not found anywhere in the world because it’s a matter of family prestige. Therefore, it’s much more important to create awareness in society than to try and collect precise data."

In the interaction program organised jointly by Community Police Service and Community Service Committee, SSP Thapa said, "The disastrous growth of drug addiction can effectively be checked if parents counsel their children on the hazards of taking drugs."

Speaking at the program, the RONAST academician Rishi Shah said that he was involved for the last ten weeks in a program, which counsels the new generation as well as parents on the control of addiction. Academician Shah vowed to continue working for the program ‘till the valley finally gets rid of the threat of drugs.’ The program is at present based only in the Kathmandu valley. "The drug-mafia will automatically be discouraged if we utilise our hidden potentials to fight it," he added.

Health psychologist Sudha Pokhrel said that the majority of the drug addicts are those found alienated from their families. Also the manager of ‘Ashara’, a counselling centre for drug-addicts, Pokhrel said, "Counselling should be the first priority for addicts, because there is a widespread apathy towards their children among parents."

Program Director of Freedom Centre Rajendra Shrestha said that the new generation can be saved from deviating into addiction if parents try to develop their children’s strength to cope with tension during early childhood.

During the program, experts questioned the role of the police as street children have been found to be involved in the addiction and trafficking of narcotic drugs. They also charged the government with expanding the problem by enacting ‘soft’ legislation against offenders.

Distribution of Voter Identity Cards delayed

Post Report

TULSIPUR, Jan 22 - Voters of Constituencies No. 2 and 4 in Dang district have not received their voter identity card (ID) eight months after their photo was taken for this purpose.

A voter said the concerned authorities had promised, while taking their photos, that voter ID would be distributed in the next two to three months.

Meanwhile, Dang District Administration has said that all preparations are complete and that the identity cards will be distributed to the voters soon. The delay was apparently due to the looting camera and voter-related documents.

The officials concerned had said that all works would be completed by mid-January.

Chief District Officer, Narayan Gopal Malego, admits that the delay was caused by the compulsion to take photographs again and the need to make investigation.

Dang District Administration has admitted that only 57 percent voters of constituency No 2 and 55 percent of voters in constituency No 4 had their photos taken although publicity was made both at the national and local levels urging people to have their photos taken. Many voters did not receive information and many did not come to have their photos taken by the authorities because the place where they were taking photos was too far.

The District Administration has said that there is a need to re-take the photos of most of the voters in constituency No 4 and some voters in constituency No 2 as their photos didn’t come out well due to technical reasons. It is likely to be inconvenient for the voters to come again to the place where their photos will be taken and cause some delay in distributing the voter identity card.