Kathmandu, Makwanpur DDCs hold meeting

RSS

KATHMANDU, Feb. 2: The joint meeting of the Kathmandu District Development Committee and the Makwanpur District Development Committee (DDC) was held under the chairmanship of Kathmandu DDC chairman Sanu Kumar Shrestha at the Kathmandu DDC meeting hall on Friday.

At the meeting extensive discussions were held on the status of the construction works of the 76-kilometre Humanebhanjyang-Hetauda Road, its repair and maintenance, inclusion of the road project in the central level plan so as to develop the road as an alternative road link with the capital city and transport management issues.

The spadeworks for the road project had begun eight years back at the initiatives of the local people.

The meeting decided to press for inclusion of the road project as a priority project in the central level plan from fiscal year 2002/2003, develop the road into an alternative highway linking Kathmandu with the rest of the country, request the government for allocation of adequate budget for the road project, construction of a tunnel on the Khanikhet-Bhimphedi section of the highway and request the bodies concerned for opening traffic on the road.

The meeting also agreed that Kathmandu and Makwanpur DDCs would work in coordination with each other for the repair, management and mobilisation of resource for the completion of the project.

The meeting also agreed to constitute a joint follow-up committee with the DDC members and local people’s representatives of both the DDCs.

The two DDCs would also send separate delegations to the departments concerned of His Majesty’s Government for speedy construction of the road project.

KMC City Council meet deferred again

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Feb 2: The country’s only one metropolitan city office has postponed its annual programme of City Council Meeting (CCM) for the fourth time due to internal differences among the members, sources said today.

The KMC administration has recently issued a circular that the coming CCM would be held on February 27, instead of February 10 as it was set earlier.

CCM is usually held in July where all the over 100 city council members comprising of the mayor, deputy mayor, ward chairmen, ward members, nominated representatives and others sit together and approve the annual budget of the metropolitan city.

"The date of the City Council Meet is deferred again for the fourth time. It is shame to the whole metropolitan city office," said one of the 35 ward chairmen, who participated in the last board meeting.

He said that the friction going on among the ward members and the mayor is the main cause for the CCM postponement though it is almost seven months late.

"The budget is coming in a very undemocratic way and the members are against it. They just want to see everything about the budget transparent but the decision-making power of the KMC is trying to bring what they want, neglecting our voice," he said.

He said, "The ward members feel that the excessive loan KMC is taking for development works is the problem. The KMC is trying to get hold of more money than it can really use it just to encourage corruption."

Earlier KMC had set August 7, October 21, November 10 and February 27 as the dates for the City Council meet.

Forced to fight with brothers

For the first time in the history of Nepal, the Royal Nepal Army has been deployed to fight what the government calls terrorist forces within the country. The army was established essentially to expand the territory of medieval Nepal that was divided into several dozen smaller states, and hence were vulnerable to Tibetan intruders and, most importantly, British colonialists, who already had the upper hand in India. And this huge mission was carried out under the visionary leadership of His Late Majesty Great King Prithvi Narayan Shah, the founder of modern Nepal in the second half of the eighteenth century.

When this mission came to an abrupt end after the signing of the historic agreement between the then government of Nepal and the East India Company in 1816, the army has stayed kind of numb—except that it was once deployed to fight the Khampa intruders in Mustang area in the 1970s. Acclaimed for their security services in the country’s national parks and wildlife reserves, the army lately was limiting itself to career training and UN peace-keeping missions.

But time has changed everything. With the declaration of emergency in the Kingdom on November 26, 2001, the Royal army is taking on the Maoists, moving into terrorist hideouts and launching operations like Search and Cordon, and Search and Destroy. But it was the Maoists who first stirred the hornet’s nest.

As the government’s war against terror intensifies in both near and far-flung areas of the country, my heart goes out to the nearly 3,000 Nepali brothers and some sisters who have lost their lives—and the countless other sufferers—during the course of the Maoist insurgency. The war is entering its seventh year this month. And yet the conflict is showing no signs of cooling down.

Attempting to grab the power through the "barrel of the gun" even at this point of time in history, and that too in a geo-political setting like Nepal, is all too wrong. It will only spawn more violence. There are many other better methods to fight inequality in the country. And the door is already open, but there ought to be a political will.

The nature of the state of emergency imposed outside the capital appears different.

Emergency in Kathmandu may mean security barriers and frequent checks. Outside of the capital, however, the emergency means much more than that. Shops and shutters close down after 7 p.m. in Nepalgunj, Gulariya and Dang. With the army and policemen guarding the streets and every nook and corner, the real Emergency can be witnessed in mid and far-western Terai. The areas are considered as Maoist hotbeds. The scenario is not much different in the eastern parts of the country—like Sankhuwasabha, Bhojpur and Tehrathum—which have lately turned out to be the new breeding grounds of the rebel communist outfit.

Take a bus to Banbasa, the far-western frontier town of Nepal, from Nepalgunj or Surkhet or Dang or Butwal. And you get a clearer picture. Then one knows how desperately the army and the policemen are working to disarm the rebels, and how frequently do they stop the public and private vehicles on the East-West Highway, which leads one ultimately to India, where Maoists reportedly have links.

But the "terrorists" seem no less clever. They appear to have stopped taking the short-cut routes. Despite all those painstaking efforts of our security forces, they still slip past the net, leaving the passengers or travellers to face the music.

Of course security checks are a must. More so in these bad times, when terrorism is threatening to damage the very socio-political process and order of our country, and the region. It is in the interest of the personal security of the people. But it should not mean that security personnel stationed at every single police station along our highways should harass innocent passengers. I, for one, was a lucky fellow, with my journalist ID card pinned on my jacket.

The real sufferers are the tens of thousands of impoverished people of the mid-western hills, who have been forced to migrate to neighbouring Indian cities in search of seasonal jobs. Poorly dressed and untidy looking, they are asked to produce letters from their Village Development Committees (VDCs) for official permission for them to cross over to India. It is always the poor who suffer, whether it be bad or good times.

Sooner or later, the rebels have to come back and sit at the negotiating table. And the sooner that takes place, the better it is for Nepal and her 23.4 million people. But it will take a long time before the insurgency fades away from the country’s horizon. Meanwhile, efforts should be forthcoming to eliminate the root causes of terrorism: poverty, illiteracy, little or no access to health care, and rampant unemployment among the youth.

Myagdi Internet centres struggle to log on

Post Report

MYAGDI, Feb 2: Though Myagdi district boasts of five Internet centres, almost all of them are now out of order.

The Internet shops that came up in the district four years back are now having problems getting connected since they don’t have an independent server, says Rabin K.C., a computer operator at the District Development Committee (DDC) office. They share the server from World Link in Kathmandu and C-net in Pokhara.

The poor functioning of e-mail and Internet services is also attributed to the low quality of exchange system installed by the Telecommunication Office in the district. Further, customers hesitate to use the centres because they charge high prices, says K.C. For instance, one kilobyte e-mail costs Rs. 10.

Campaign against ‘open-air toilets’

Post Report

PARBAT, Feb 2: The Parbat District Development Committee (DDC), with the help of the Rural Drinking Water and Sanitation Support Programme funded by the Government of Finland, is planning to construct 2,000 toilets here within this fiscal year.

Tikaram Bhusal, the Vice-President of the DDC, announced the plan in a recent seminar organised to formulate a 5-year development plan for the district. "These toilets will be built in all the Village Development Committees (VDCs)," said Bhusal.

"A field study conducted last year found that only 20 percent of the 30,000 families in the district have proper toilet facilities," said Bhusal.

But most of the families in Kusma, the headquarters of the district, do have hygienic toilets. That, however, is only restricted to the families who have educated members in them.

More than 24,000 families are either using temporary toilet or don’t have any toilets at all, according to the study.

Records at the District Health Office show that almost 50 per cent of the diseases in the district are being spread through open-air human waste. "The lack of
proper toilets and lack of awareness about personal hygiene are the chief reasons of most of the common diseases here," says Sashidhar Poudel, a Health Inspector.

There are a few non-governmental organisations encouraging people to build clean toilets, but the campaign hasn’t been successful. Says Jung Bahadur KC, the Chairman of Khaulalafuti VDC: "It’s too difficult for the poor people to invest in a proper toilet."

For Mechi youths, the pasture is greener abroad

By Dharma Prasad Poudel

PHUNGLING, Taplejung, Feb 2: Many more of the educated-but-unemployed youths of Mechi Zone are seeking foreign employment. This is reflected in the number of passports being issued, especially in Ilam, Panchthar and Taplejung districts.

"We are issuing passports to people around 25 years old almost everyday," says Surya Bhattarai, the Deputy Chief District Officer (CDO) of Taplejung.

"When we ask them about the purpose of acquiring a passport," says Bhattarai, "almost 95 per cent say that they are going abroad for employment."

The district started issuing passports six years back and has already issued 9,505 of them. "In 2001 alone, we issued 2,649 passports," says Bhattarai.

The District Administration Office (DAO) of Panchthar issued 3,513 passports in the last 16 months, according to Jeevan Jholi, the CDO of Panchthar. "We issue up to 15 passports a day," says Jholi.

In a similar vein, the DAO of Ilam issued 1,901 passports during the last 15 months. "Most of these passports were issued to youngsters," says Ratna Kaji Bajracharya, the CDO of the district.

The unemployed youths waiting for their passports believe it’s the only choice left for them. "I couldn’t get a job although I completed my Bachelors last year," says 23-year-old Toya Limbu. "I must earn since I have a lot of responsibilities towards my family."

"More than 70 percent of educated youths are working abroad. Now our village is like an elderly community," says Som Pathak, the Chairman of Fulbari Village Development Committee (VDC).

Appeal to save Beeshajari lake

Post Report

SAURAHA, Chitwan, Feb 2: The environment experts appealed for quick action for the conservation of the Beeshajari Tal area, which was declared a Ramsar site on Friday, in a programme held to mark the World Wetlands Day here today.

"The number of visiting birds has decreased in recent years because of our negligence in conserving the area. We need to act on this soon," said Yogesh Adhikari, the president of Bird Education Society (BES) of Sauraha.

The programme was organised by BES with the support of Mahendra Nature Conservation Trust (MNCT).

"For protecting the local birds, the fish in the lake should be conserved and the water should be kept clean," said Bhagwan Dahal, the investigation and follow-up officer of the Trust.

More than 100 students from five schools participated in the function. They were informed about the role of the lake as a habitat for birds and steps to be followed for its conservation.

The participants also cleaned the Beeshajari Tal area and watched the birds.

The Beeshajari lake is an important part of the Royal Chitwan National Park and lies in the Baranda Bhar forest. The lake entertains more than 269 species of birds along with aquatic animals, according to Bed Bahadur Khadka, the ranger of the Park.

On the occasion, the BES also announced that it will start counting the birds in the Baranda Bhar region from Monday. MNCT will also begin counting the tigers and rhinoceros—enlisted by World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as endangered animals—in the region from the same day. "We will also count the deer as they are the prey of tigers," said Dahal.