It took Khokana residents 20 yrs to realise the need of toilets

By Razen Manandhar

KHOKANA (Lalitpur), Sept 25 - It is better late than never. That is what the people of this laid-back village on the outskirts of Kathmandu prove.

It took nearly 20 years for the residents here to realise the need for the construction of toilets in their houses.

Khokana is a small village about 12 kilometres south of Kathmandu with a population of around 4,000.

"Though late, we now feel that we really need toilets in our homes and for the cleanliness in the village," says Nati Maharjan, while digging a ditch along the stone-paved street.

Maharjan is one of the villagers here who has now become more aware of the need for proper toilets.

It was in 1981 that the Ministry of Local Development and UNICEF had jointly constructed 331 toilets in the village on their expenses. Though many households possessed toilets then, very few of them used it. They drew technical drawbacks of the toilets and stuck to their old habit, i.e., going to the open fields.

But the villagers here have now learnt the importance of using proper toilets. People here are now busy digging ditches and laying drainage pipes to construct toilets in their homes.

The villagers, a majority of them farmers and some job holders, are offering their time everyday to voluntarily dig ditches and do masonry work to lay drainage pipes in their locality to construct new toilets in their homes. Even the school children feel happy to see the drainage that will give outlet to their house-toilets being constructed in old times. A very few households in the village now have toilets.

"This is a remarkable change in our village," says Madan Krishna Dangol, chairman of the Khokana Village Development Committee. "The villagers here have realised on their own that they need the toilets without depending on any NGOs," Dangol said.

Till now, the drainage is being constructed in Kwalachhi, Nhu Dhoka, Baakha Chaur, Jhyaku Chhen, Gabu, Nanicha, Chochen Pampa and Thalachhi areas in the last three years. He said, "The VDC plans to complete the project by this month."

Dangol said that the VDC has almost used the entire rural self-reliance budget in the last three years to complete the network of sewerage in the densely populated village with complicated house plans.

"In the past, the villagers did not feel the need for toilets as they use to go to the fields while population was quite sparse," said Dangol. "This way, our traditional method of making compost fertilisers was in use as well."

But as modernisation began to engulf this isolated village, villagers forgot the traditional techniques of managing solid waste but could not accept the new ones. This resulted in unmanaged garbage and bad sanitation," Dangol further said.

Khokana is known for the people’s extraordinary attachment to the village’s prime deity Rudrayani and traditional lifestyle.

The home-processed mustard oil is one of the most popular products of this village. But this too has begun to dwindle as the time changed. But the UNESCO provided assistance to revive this traditional technology.

Govt committed to improve water supply in Capital

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Sept 25 – National Planning Commission member Dr. Rameshananda Vaidya expressed the government’s commitment to improve the situation of drinking water in the Kathmandu Valley.

"It is a challenging task and we have to come up with a working management and lease a contract to improve the present supply and sewage system," said Vaidya, addressing the representatives of private operators of different multi-national companies at an interaction programme on Sunday. "We are ready to provide all necessary support to those who come forward to take part in the project."

Dinesh Chandra Pyakurel, secretary at the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works said that the government has felt the need for policy and management changes to make Nepal Water Supply Corporation more effective.

Lack of maintenance, continuous high leakage, lack of reach in various municipalities, heavy dependence on subsidy are the major problems faced by the Corporation, Pyakurel said, adding, "We had to look out for private operators due to the Corporation’s poor performance."

"Private sector will guarantee improved service, skill and knowledge transfer, quality improvement and access to funds" said Pyakurel. According to him, the private sector aims to reach both the under served and not served through shared connections and encourage regular consultation with the consumers and consumer groups so that they are properly served when they bring in water from the Melamchi Project.

Arthur McIntosh, senior engineer of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said, "ADB involvement in water section began only in 1996 when we were approached for funding for Melamchi project." He said that the Ministry should play the role to develop policy, monitor and implement the project whereas the operator and regulator should manage water utility and regulate the operator, respectively.

Representatives of private water supply firms of Australia, New Zealand, France, Canada, Finland, Japan, United Kingdom, HMG and NGOs took part in the interaction programme, which was jointly organised by Private Sector Participatory Committee and the Ministry for Physical Planning and Works.

Japan extends support to IDF-Nepal

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Sept 25 – For the construction of Community Development Centre in Jhapa district, Embassy of Japan in Nepal has decided to provide around US $ eighty thousand to Indigenous Development Foundation of Nepal (IDF-Nepal) under the Grant Assistance for Grassroots Project.

According to the press release issued from Japan Reference Materials of the Embassy of Japan, the agreement was signed between the Embassy and IDF here today.

The grant will be utilised for the construction of two-storey building in Charpane Village Development Committee in Jhapa district, in which all the facilities will be included and with a training hall that will be utilized as a Community Development Centre (CDC), states the release.

According to the release, the main objective of the CDC is to upgrade the knowledge and skills of the people in the communities through training. It aims to preserve traditional arts and crafts in which they have culturally specialised to satisfy the consumer’s demand. The release states that the project will provide direct benefit to the people of 10 Village Development Committees.

The CDC has planned to establish and develop entrepreneur’s groups and cooperatives, provide training on the production and marketing of arts and craft, help craftsmen identify markets for their products and create awareness regarding health and sanitation and develop women community members, the release states.

Teachers postpone protest programmes

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Sept 25 – The Special Teachers’ Association (STA) today postponed its nationwide protest programmes demanding salary and other facilities equal to their counterparts in general schools as Minister for Education and Sports Amod Prasad Upadhyay Monday directed officials to start a dialogue to address their problems.

Four members from STA are negotiating with high level officials from the Ministry for Education and Sports. However, the name of the government officials are not made public, according to STA’s president Pashupati Parajuli, who is also one of the negotiating members on behalf of STA.

Officials at the Special Education Council,however, say that they are yet to decide a five- member-team, including two joint secretaries at the Ministry. "We will declare a five- member- negotiating team tomorrow," said an official at the Council. The dialogue is to start from tomorrow.

Teachers under special education— education intended towards the hearing impaired, physically handicapped, mentally-retarded and the blind— are being deprived of the increased salary in 2000 and pension and medical facility, which teachers of general schools have been enjoying now. Despite rise in salary of all teachers in 2000, they have been denied of it. "We have been denied of basic remuneration that other teachers from general schoools are enjoying," says Parajuli.

However, officials at the Ministry said they lack legal grounds to provide the increased salary." We have a problem to provide the salary as increased last year and other facilities as their counterparts have been enjoing since the Ministry for Finance recognises special education schools run by grant," said Gopal Prasad Kandel, an officer at the Special Education Council.

The teachers were launching a number of protest programmes from the last week. STA president informed that they would resume all the nationwide programmes if the government does not abide by its demands. "We will not compromise on our demands," said STA president Parajuli.

STA’s demand list includes equal salary as their counterparts in general school have been enjoying including pension and medical facility.

‘Maoist cadres insecure from their leaders’

Post Report

BANKE, Sept 25 - Some of the Maoist grass-roots cadres in the western part of this plain district felt insecured from the possible retaliations of their own leaders, a report here said Tuesday.

A Maoist grass-roots cadre, who was assigned to expand the party organisation in the Raniyapur, Udarapur and Sonpur VDCs, said that he had become a victim of his party leadership that physically tortured him for protesting their anti-social activities.

"We were threatened to deaths after we protested against the local Maoist leaders for forcibly extorting money and attacking to locals," said a district member of the Maoist- affiliated All Nepal Peasant’s Association requesting anonymity.

He told The Kathmandu Post that Maoist leaders severely beat up the six grass-roots cadres when they raised their voices against such extortion, torture and mugging. He also said that he had to send his wife away from his home for fear of her life as they had targeted to assault her.

After they could not put up with such atrocities, some grass-roots level cadres filed a complaint to its district level party committee to investigate on the matter some two weeks ago. "But the local Maoist leaders have not stopped looting and mugging despite the pledge of the district level leaders to prevent such activities," he said, adding that Comrade Yug, A.K.A. Krishna Tharu, and his accomplices were responsible for such anti-people activities.

It may be recalled that the local People’s Militia revolted against the local leaders about a month ago. Four notorious Maoist leaders have already fled their home after the locals resorted to take revenge against their atrocities.

Locals said Mofiuddin Khan, one of the four Maoist fugitives, is a government employee working as a secretary at Sitapur VDC. A complaint has been lodged at the district administration against Khan’s atrocities in the locality. It is learned that the local Maoist leaders have also warned some of the members of other political parties of severe actions if they spoke against the Maoist party line.

Telephone service out of order in Ramechhap

CHAUTARA, Sept 25(PR) - Telephone service has not been operating smoothly in different Bazaar areas and VDCs of Sindhupalchok district over the last four months.

Telephone lines have been installed in 28 VDCs out of the total 79 VDCs, commercial centres and security agency as apart of the government policy to instal telephone line in all the VDCs. Of them, nearly 89 telephone lines remain disrupted from time to time.

The problem is being encountered in telephone service at some of the main commercial centres of Nepal-Tibet trade such as Liping, Tatopani and Bahrabise and Araniko highway area and Melamchi Bazaar, which is the focal point of 24 VDCs of the district. The telephone lines operate for a day or two once they are repaired and again go out of order. How long can we repair like this and continue to spend money? asks Indra Mani Dahal of Melamchi Telephone Booth.

Most of the telephone lines in the district are of Marts and VHF system. Whenever there is rainfall or the sky is cloudy the telephone system does not operate. Apart from this, technicians also harass the customers to a great extent, a telephone owner of Bahrabise complained.

As a result of the nagging problem of telephone, businessmen go to Khasa Bazaar and make international call to the capital by paying Rs 135 per minute. According to businessmen, about 150 businessmen make international call to Kathmandu from Khasa Bazaar daily by paying international charge.

There is a situation in which the government is unable to know many incidents of law and order and business events due to lack of telephone service.

When the Chinese government closed the border entry point for 24 hours since Monday, the Immigration Department and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had expressed their ignorance about the incident. An employee of the Immigration Office had told The Kathmandu Post that they had no knowledge because of lack of telephone service.

Chairman of Tatopani VDC Amun Khadka said it was a misfortune for the country as a whole that the communication system at the border with Tibet was in disarray.

" We informed the political leaders and employees about the condition of communication time and again but what can we do if they don’t listen to us!" VDC chairman Khadka remarked.

All the 13 telephone lines are almost out of order. Sometimes they operate for a couple of hours, but suddenly they are out of order again, all the owners complain.

Maoists take action against the rapist

Post Report

NUWAKOT, Sept 25 - Maoists Monday took action against a member of Village People’s Government (VPG) - Maoist declared local government - of Haldekalika VDC, who had allegedly raped a handicapped girl and was at large till now.

After much pressure from people of all walks of life, the Maoists took action against Kaile Giri alias Shivaraj Giri at a cultural programme organised by the Maoists at Ganesh Secondary School of Ganeshsthan VDC.

In front of a big mass converged for the cultural programme, the Maoists severely beat Giri and took him away.

After raping the 12-year-old girl, Giri was at large for a long time. Indraraj Giri, a local, had found the rapist in Bhaktapur district and handed him over to Risheraj Bhattarai, chief of the VPG.

The Rapist after getting punished from his own "comrades" conceded the charges and said he was involved in such criminal acts after his father’s death. He also said that it was the fourth rape he committed.

At the same programme, the Maoists also took action against Kumar Lama and Bishnu Bahadur Khadka, both from Kavrepalanchok, on charges of collecting donations by appearing as Maoists. Maoists punished Lama and Khadka by smearing their face.