Dunduwa irrigation project can be revived : Report

Post Report

BANKE, July 28 - A preliminary feasibility study carried out on the oldest but already out-of-order Dunduwa irrigation project could be brought into full operation for a long time with an additional investment on its reconstruction, a report submitted to the District Irrigation Office (DIO) stated.

The report said that an estimated Rs 50 million could be adequate to bring the abandoned irrigation project back to life.

Constructed about 40 years ago, almost all the structure developed for the Dunduwa irrigation project can also be used by the Sikta irrigation project under construction, an official at the DIO said.

The report said that the ongoing Sikta project could also be linked up with the Dunduwa project network, which was developed with a view to providing irrigation facility to about 2,000 hectares of land in the Banke district.

The feasibility report, carried out jointly by an independent consulting agency - Appropriate Technology Consulting Service -and technicians from the DIO, claimed that more than two cubic metres of water could be available from the project even in the dry season. The report said that the volume of water available during the lean season would help irrigate more than 1,000 hectares of land.

Initially, the project was providing irrigation facility to the 11 VDCs of the district once it was completed, and inaugurated by Late King Mahendra, about 40 years ago. But it has remained non-functional over the last six years, with no government plan of its revival.

A DIO source also said that the Irrigation Department has also shown keen interest in reviving the project and the government has also allocated about Rs 10 million for the same during this current fiscal year.

20 pc women succumbs to unsafe abortion

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BIRATNAGAR, July 28 - More than 20 per cent of the total maternity death in the country is associated with insecure abortion practice, experts campaigning for safer motherhood here said on Friday.

Experts participating in a regional seminar said that the number of the maternity deaths could be remarkably reduced if women were provided with secure and legal abortion service.

They said that abortion risk ratio could be 250 times higher if an abortion was carried out with the help of an unskilled hand than that of the skilled one.

The District Development Committee chairmen, public health officers and representatives from all the 16 districts in the eastern region were taking part in the seminar on the "Role of local bodies and non-governmental organisations for the prevention of insecure abortion in Nepal."

The participants agreed on the fact that a discussion should be held at the national level to reduce the ongoing practice of insecure abortion. They also pointed out that the abortion issue hardly become the matter of public debate because it was considered socially unclean.

The experts campaigning for the safer motherhood also stressed that public awareness generating programmes should be focused on the rural areas from where a large number of women die of insecure abortion practice.

Rain affects inner roads in Ilam

By Madhav Ghimire

ILAM, July 28 - Although lack of adequate rain has prevented farmers of Ilam from transplanting paddy in their paddy fields, the little rain they have experienced so far has affected the inner roads of the district.

This is the district in which there are road links in all the 48 VDCs of the district in winter. However, with the onset of rainy season since May-June, most of the roads in the district become useless for both passenger buses and lorries carrying goods and locals suffer for the whole rainy season due to lack of durable motorable roads.

Even the vehicles which carry daily consumer goods are not sent by businessmen to the villages for fear of damaging their vehicles soon.

Vehicles are somehow reaching up to some villages like Danabari and Mahamai in southern Ilam but the time has come when the district will have torrential rainfall. Local shopkeepers have therefore already filled up their shops by stocking various consumer goods for the whole rainy season. They know that they will have to encounter serious problem to transport goods during the rainy season and there is no other alternative than to pile up goods before the onset of monsoon, said businessman Padam Mani Shrestha.

Similarly, the road leading to Mangalbare VDC, which is the main commercial centre of nearly a dozen VDCs in western Ilam, is also gradually becoming useless with the approach of monsoon. So is the case with the road leading to Sukrabare, the commercial centre of Namsaling VDC in the east.

Since they have piled up plenty of consumers goods, there is no problem for consumers goods for this rainy season, but there is one great problem in case of serious illness - the problem of transporting patients to the hospital located at distant places, says teacher of Namsaling Abinarayan Adhikari.

Engineer of Ilam District Development Committee Ganesh Raj Basti admits that the ‘seasonal’ rural roads have been badly affected by rain. According to him, only 113 kilometres of the total 928 kilometre road in the district is metalled while the remaining 805 kilometre-road is rough and 10 kilometre-road is gravelled.

Apart from this, the condition of the roads named as ‘agricultural roads’ is also extremely poor. For example, the government allocates budget every year for the construction of Nepaltar-Mangalbare road in Sankhejung VDC but vehicles do not ply there reliably during the rainy season.

A total of Rs 1,662,000 was earmarked for the 13 kilometre road in the fiscal year 1999-2000 but only half of the amount was spent that year. Another Rs 4,000,000 was allocated for the road in the fiscal year 200-2001 but only Rs 2,176,000 has been disbursed so far.

The government has invested 24 percent of the total cost in addition to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) loan for the road project. The ADB has not disbursed nearly half of the 3.2 million rupee loan as the report was not sent to the ADB in that year, according to ngineer Basti.

Moreover, another agricultural road has also been proposed. It will be constructed from Ilam municipality to Nayabazaar VDC via Namsaling VDC.

The quality of the roads built in different VDCs is extremely poor. For the sake of cheap popularity, dozers have been brought to different villages and roads are constructed without taking into acount the quality and direct or indirect impact on ecology, Devi Gautam, a teacher of Mangalbare VDC said.

"How can the quality of the roads be maintained if the contracts are signed at the rate which is sometimes as low as 60 to 70 percent of the exact cost required to construct the road," asked a former office-bearer of the DDC.

As there are no sewers on either sides of the roads, rain water gushes down from the middle of the road, washing and damaging the road completely.

The road from Ilam to Jhapa via the old route, which is shorter by 25 kilometres than the 78-kilometre Charali-Ilam road of Mechi highway, is also non-operational during the rainy season. It is not in operation even in winter due to lack of repair.

The road is risky as the same river cris-crosses the road at dozens of places.

The roads leading to tourist sites such as Maipokhari, Shree Antu Danda and Gajurmukhi are not only rough but they are also not properly managed and therefore it requires a great courage to reach these places on vehicles in this rainy season.

Rains bring relief to farmers

JANAKPUR, July 28(RSS)- The farmers in Dhanusha district have sighed relief with the coming of rain last evening and this morning.

So far paddy has been cultivated only on 50 percent out of the 65,000 hectares of cultivable land in the district this year because of the lack of adequate precipitation.

Paddy transplantation, which generally take place in July in the district, has been delayed this season due to the lack of rain.

However, with the much-anticipated rain last night, the farmers hope to cultivate paddy in the remaining land.

The rain has also brought some relief to the local people from the searing temperatures in the district during the past few weeks.

Although irrigation facility is available in the district through various irrigation schemes such as the Kamala irrigation project, the underground deep tube-well irrigation project and small scale sectoral irrigation schemes, 90 percent of the land in Dhanusha district is dependent on rain for cultivation.

500 children vaccinated against encephalitis

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BHAIRAHAWA, July 28 - A free encephalitis vaccination programme was organised here under the auspices of Nepal Tarun Dal Siddharthanagar Town Committee to save children from viral encephalitis which has been raging here every year as an epidemic.

A total of 500 children from Siddharthanagar town and the nearby rural areas were vaccinated against encephalitis at the programme organised to mark the 20th B.P. Memorial Day, according to organisers.

Earlier, such programmes were organised by different other social organisations, but the organisers claimed that this was the first time that a free vaccination programme was launched in the town against viral encephalitis.

The target was to vaccinate 2,500 children from poor families aged between 6 months to 10 years, residing in the mosquito infested areas and where pigs are being raised. However, the number of children was so great that they ran the vaccination programme at seven places.

This vaccine against encephalitis should be administered continuously for three times. The children vaccinated today will be administered vaccine again on Saturday next for the second time and after six months for the third time, president of Tarun Dal Siddharthanagar Committee Om Kumar Shrestha said.

The programme was carried out in cooperation with District Public Health Office.

Shrestha said the organisation which concentrated mainly on political activities in the past had carried out this social programme to ensure children’s bright future. He also informed that the committee would carry out a programme aimed at increasing the income source of the poor people in the near future.

Over 1,100 blinds regain eye-sight

KATHMANDU, July 28 (RSS) - More than 1,100 blind persons have regained their eye-sight after undergoing cornea replacement surgery at the Tilganga Eye Centre.

This information was provided at the third condolence meeting organized today under the joint auspices of the Tilganga Hospital Eye Bank and Information Centre and the Lions Club of Pashupatinath to pay heartfelt tributes to the departed persons who had donated their eyes posthumously.

At the program, a two-minute silence was observed in memory of Their late Majesties the King and Queen and other departed members of the Royal family as well as the departed eye-donors.

Altogether 232 persons, including 80 women, have donated eyes posthumously this year.

It is said that there has been a significant increase in the number of persons wanting to donate their eyes posthumously as a result of the growing awareness among the people about the importance of eye donation and the Eye Bank has been receiving such corneas donated posthumously every day.

Similarly, the number of persons wishing to donate eyes voluntarily and signing the deeds has reached 18,349.

Speaking on the occasion, Ambika and Anju Thapa, two sisters who gained their eye-sight after undergoing cornea transplantation surgery, said that although they personally did not know the donors of their eyes, they would always remain in their heart.

At the program, letters of gratitude were given to the family members of the eye donors and letters of appreciation to the Devkota Library, Biratnagar; the Nayabasti Youth Club, Jorpati, the Kamalachhi Youth Group, Ason, Pashupati Briddhashram, the Lions Club of Rajdhani, and Hotel Maharaja for their active contribution in the field of eye-donation

Addressing the condolence meeting, chief guest Dr. Trailokya Nath Upreti underlined the need for generating public awareness on the importance of eye donation.

Medical Director at Nepal Eye Bank of Tilganga Eye Centre, Dr. Sanduk Ruit, disclosed that the centre has been producing international standard eye-lens and it has so far provided 500,000 eye lens both within and outside the country.

Dr. Ruit also said that the centre has provided its services to 600,000 persons since its inception.

Chairman of the centre Jagadish Ghimire stated that the non-governmental organizations were contributing a lot in the field of eye care services in Nepal. He said Nepal is at the forefront of the whole of South Asia in terms of quality eye care services.

President of Lions Club of Rajdhani, Suresh Kumar Agrawal, handed over a cheque of Rs 129,000 to the centre for carrying out free cornea transplantation.

He said the club has been extending such kind of cooperation to the centre every year.

At the program presided over by president of the Lions Club of Kathmandu, Pashupatinath, Dinesh Poudel, social worker Sarad Kasa, on behalf of the family of the eye donors, newly elected Governor of Lions Club International District 325-A Dr. Jyoti Sherchan, Prof. Shankar Raj Pathak of the Pashupati Area Development Trust, Vice-President of Nepal Blood Donors’ Association Divya Mani Dixit and others also spoke on the importance of eye donation.

The popularity of cornea transplantation spread throughout the world after Russian physician Dr. Philatov successfully carried out the first cornea transplantation operation in 1940.

According to a survey, one in every 100 persons in Nepal is blind. The pious and generous act of donating one’s eyes to a blind person has its own importance in such a context.

Bearing this in mind, efforts are being made to promote public awareness about the importance of eye donation in Nepal.

Fear of undefused bombs grips locals

ARGHAKHANCHI, July 28 (RSS) - A situation of fear has gripped the local people here with two powerful bombs used by the CPN-Maoist activists for bombing the Khidim Police Post still remain to be defused.

The bombs are said to be used by the Maoist activists during a raid at the local Khidim Police Post on July 17.

"We just don’t know when the bombs would go off. The people here are living under the constant fear of these two un-defused bombs," says Birendra Gautam, a local. The children had picked up the explosives and carried them all the way to the market. The Pokharathok Youth Club had carried the bombs and placed it at the damaged police post along with a danger sign placed there, it is learnt.

When the District Police Office was contacted in this connection, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), Sher Bahadur Basnet, said that the Royal Nepalese Army has been requested to defuse the bombs.

Similarly, DSP at the Regional Police Office, Bhairahawa, Prem Bahadur Adhikari, said immediate measures would be taken to defuse the bombs.

Meanwhile, communication links with places in eastern Nepal from here remain disrupted after the marts set of Nepal Telecommunications Corporation (NTC) kept at the local Pokharathok Health Post was damaged during the bombing of the police post by the rebels last week.

According to NTC, it will take about one year to repair the damaged marts set from which five telephone lines were operated.

A large quantity of medicines and the refrigerator at the health post where vaccines had been kept have been damaged by the blast resulting of an acute shortage of vaccines.

Tariff hike leads closing down of 25 stone crushing factories

BUTWAL, July 28 (RSS) - Twenty-five stone crushing industries have been closed down as the Rupandehi District Development Committee has increased the export tariff of different kinds of stones from 50 to 84 per cent.

These industries have been crushing the boulders being washed away by floods during the monsoon season and exporting the stone pebbles to India and saving the Tinau River from siltation.

As the products of these industries are not consumed in the local market, 99.5 per cent of its products are exported to India.

These industries export 35 trucks of crushed stones to India and earn about Rs 1.4 million (Indian currency) daily. They conduct transactions worth about Rs 400 million (Indian currency) a year. They contribute Rs 60 million in the form of customs duty and Rs 65 million to the local body in the form of tax every year.

The closure of these industries has not only caused a loss to the national exchequer but also a loss of foreign currency to the nation.

A sum of Rs 250 million has been invested in the stone crushing industries based along the banks of the Tinau River from Butwal Municipality to Hati Bangai Village Development Committee (VDC).

Altogether 10,000 people are directly or indirectly employed and 33 trucks are engaged by these industries.

Speaking at an interaction program of entrepreneurs linked with stones and sand and the local people’s representatives held at Siddharthanagar yesterday, president of the Nepal Roda Dhunga Byabasai Sangh, Narayan Dhakal, regretted that the tax rate mentioned in the regulations of the Local Self Governance Act were very high.

The Association’s advisor, Devi Prasad Pandey, said that the local stone crushing industries had to be closed down as they were not in a position to compete with their Indian counterparts because of the District Development Committee (DDC) had levied high tax under the Local Self Governance Act without giving due consideration to the environmental aspect of the district. Chairman of Anandaban Village Development Committee, Romani Pathak, said that as the main source of income of the VDC are crushed stones and sand, the DDC should give serious attention to solving the problem caused by the high export tax.

President of Rupandehi Chamber of Commerce and Industries, Mahendra Narayan Shrestha, said that the DDC should not have created an atmosphere for closing down the stone crushing industries by fixing high export tax as there was a great possibility for exporting the crushed stones to Bangladesh.

Chairman of Tikuligath VDC, Tikaram Pandey, said that the DDC had increased the export tariff without consulting the VDC council members. Pandey stressed the need to develop a concept for protecting the industries of the country. Chairman of Shankernagar VDC, Baburam Aryal, said that even though 70 per cent of the income of the DDC was received from stones, stone pebbles and sand, it was improper to the increase
the export tariff in this manner.

The stone crushing industries have been facing problems as they have not been able to export their products to Indian market since the past two years.