Top tourist zone: Price tagged

By Arjun Bhandari

Tourists can now no longer freely roam the capital’s Durbar Square. Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC), following Bhaktapur Municipality’s move has begun charging tourists entering its top monument zone.

Bhaktapur Municipality, a living museum as called first by a French archeologist, applied the policy of collecting a certain amount of money as an entry fee some eight years ago, as advised by the German cooperation agency, GTZ.

For more than two weeks now the KMC has been generating, on average, Rs 35,000 in cash as a service charge from the visiting guests, including SAARC nationals, in its accounts per day even during the tourist off season. This service charge is being levied on tourists to preserve Basantapur Durbar Square and enhance its beauty and its traditional charm.

The KMC officials are optimistic that the Hanuman Dokha Durbar Square Conservation Programme (HDDSCP) will generate about Rs 22.8 million out of the expected 140,000 annual visitors.

After closely watching public opinion and the positive impact of service charges levied in six other areas in the Kathmandu Valley, the KMC decided on August 17 (Bhadra 1) to levy Rs 200 from each tourist and Rs 25 from SAARC nationals as service charge from the five entry points into the Durbar Square.

And others, like the Lalitpur Municipality, including the Lord Pashupatinath Area, Baudhanath, Changu Narayan and Swayambhunath Conservation Area have all followed suit. But the entry fee varies from place to place as the rates are decided by the respective management committees.

Although the KMC and other tourist information centres in the capital do not have authentic statistics of the tourists visiting the Basantapur Durbar Square, one of the seven UNESCO listed World Heritage Site Monument Zones in Nepal, on an annual basis, officials say that most visitors do not miss a visit to the square situated in the heart of the city area.

Programme Manager of the HDDSCP, Rashmila Prajapati, says the actual statistics of the tourists, including SAARC nationals, visiting the area will be made available one year later. The programme is now keeping daily records of tourist arrival with everyday income.

According to the statistics made available by the site Office of the HDDSCP, over the last two weeks, a record number of 235 tourists, including SAARC nationals, paid the service charge before entering the Durbar Square. The site office says there are still some loopholes that need to be monitored properly.

After the service charge was announced, this most visited monument site seems to be fairly clean compared to previously. A total of 19 sweepers have been deployed in the area to collect garbage left by visitors. Previous visitors may definitely find a marked difference in the days ahead.

From now on, the HDDSCP site office has imposed a ban on putting up posters, banners and other forms of public advertising in the area. In order to keep the area neat and clean, a trust of Rs 11 million has been set up with a financial assistance of Rs 4.86 million from the Japanese Embassy, which has been assisting similar sanitation projects at KMC ward Nos. 13, 14 and 15.

Prajapati says that the KMC board has an immediate programme of building five toilets in different places to facilitate the visiting tourists. But KMC lacks land to build such toilets.

The KMC has a plan to relocate two buildings owned by the District Police Office and Mahendra Sanskrit University (MSU) office from the monumental zone. After these two buildings are shifted, the KMC will have enough space for building toilets and other structures, including some cozy restaurants and bars, in order to add more tourist facilities.

For this, the KMC has forwarded a proposal to the cabinet to relocate the DSP office to the old office of the LMC near New Road. The MSU officials have, in principle, also agreed to hand over the Basantapur based site, provided that the KMC constructs a building on about two ropanis of land inside the Ring Road area.

If there is anything to go by the reactions of the visiting tourists, especially the non-SAARC nationals, the service charges levied by the six most visited areas seems to be disgusting.

Maria Gonzalez from Barcelona, Spain, in Nepal for the first time for a week long vacation, was not happy with the service charge being levied in all the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. She was not sure whether or not her donation would be better utilized for the conservation efforts.

"If my money is better used for the targeted purposes, I am happy," she said. Displaying six entry tickets, she added, "I am very surprised that I have to pay everywhere. It increases my travelling costs."

The tourists feel more uncomfortable whenever they are asked to produce service charge tickets by the municipality security guards.

"We want to move around the area freely," says another couple from Britain. They advised that such service charges be levied at the entry point or airport. Tony Johnston and his wife, a British couple working in a Hong Kong based firm, who have already visited Nepal three times, echoed Gonzalez over the service charge.

Johnston shrugged, "It is nuisance." The British couple, however, did not mind paying a certain fee for a notable cause like conserving the ancient archeological sites. But, what disturbed them was the frequent inquiry by the security guards.

Other problems faced by the KMC officials introducing the new rules in the area is the local protests, unfriendly manner of hawkers and the public meeting of political parties in the area.

Initially, locals protested the KMC’s service charge plan. They are of the view that their tourism business will dwindle once the service charge is introduced. Some of the curio shops are located inside the monumental zone and the service charge must be paid while visiting the familiar stalls.

Mingma Shrestha, a local, who runs a silver jewellery shop at Makhan, is disappointed with the introduction of the service charge. She is one of the 50 such shopkeepers at Makhan tole, where the KMC has set up a booth for the collection of the service charge.

Though the rift over the service charge seems to have subdued for the time being, the KMC officials suspect that "the protest was politically motivated." Now the booth has been shifted close to the DSP office, keeping the curio shops outside the Durbar premises.

KMC officials, however, claim that the move would hardly affect business as they have issued visitors passes to their regular clients, who have to pass thorough the area for personal business. A long-time pass is also issued to those who wish to stay in Nepal for a few weeks or months. Once they obtain such passes, they need not pay the service charge time and again.

What is important to keep in mind is that the KMC should better utilise the collected funds only for the conservation of the area and its maintenance.

Important sites located around the square:

- Mahendreswor Temple (1561)

- Taleju Temple (1564)

- Chasin Dega, also known as Krishna mandir (1649)

- Basantapur Durbar (1649)

- Taga Gan also known as Big bell (1779)

- Kal-Bhairab (undated)

- Hanuman Statue (1672)

- Jagannath Temple (1563)

- Degu-taleju Temple (undated)

- Shiva Parbati Temple (built during the reign of King Rana Bahadur Shah)

- majudega (17th century)

- Ashok Binayak, locally known as Maru Ganesh (undated)

- Kasthamandap locally known as Maru Sattal believed to be built by a single tree(12th century)

- Silyan Sata (built with the left over wood of Kasthamandap)

- Dhansa or Kabinrapur (1673)

- Trilokyamohan Narayan 1680)

- Kumari-ghar (1757)

- Gaddi Baithak (1907)

Pretty maids all in a row

Smriti Dhungel

AAs night starts to envelop the city, the darkness brings in a distinct ‘Red Light’ trend that has begun to stalk this city’s streets.

"I went recently to a discotheque at about 10pm. I was surrounded by young girls quoting their price, urging me to pick one of them" said a person on condition of anonymity. "I wanted to know more," he added, "So I went out and someone said, ‘Which of the girls do you want?’ Showing a row of taxis that lined outside Durbarmarg with a girl at the back of each seat, asking me to make a pick. If I didn’t like a girl in the first taxi it drove off replaced by another and then another. All the girls looked below 16 years."

The eyewitness was none other than an investigator from MAITI Nepal, an NGO that deals with trafficking and prostitution.

At a recent press conference organized by Community Action Centre- Nepal, Kamala Panta, parliamentarian and former minister for Women and Children’s Social Welfare, warned about the demand for child prostitution in Nepal. "Young girls under the age of sixteen work in the flesh trade which calls for serious action to be taken by NGOs in coordination with the government to tackle this grave problem".

The exact statistics relating to child prostitution in the city are uncertain but statistics given by most NGOs state the figures to be roughly 5000 out of which around 30 percent are children below 16. There is yet no law against prostitution. "How can we think of controlling child prostitution in our borders and outside Nepal when the government cannot even handle what is happening in some of the city’s nightclubs, restaurants and hotels," says activist Anuradha Koirala. "No one wants to listen or act on this issue," she further adds.

Kathmandu, the city of the ‘happening and the privileged’ is now the exploitation centre between the exploiters and the exploited, the ones who throw the money around and the ones who desperately need it. Underprivileged and under aged girls are the worst exploited.

To many social observers like Krishna P. Pyrakurel, Kathmandu is the city most vulnerable to new trends. "With migration, which is 20 percent as issued by the central bureau of statistics 2001, women who come to the city in search of jobs and a better life style eventually end up as dancers and waitresses then only to end up in prostitution".

The night-clubs are centres for ‘disguised’ prostitution where the young girls are exposed to a set-up that exerts pressure on them to please the customer and then to attend to the whims of the male client. Says Anju Lama, 15 years old who works as a nightclub dancer, "It is more fun here than back home, it is easy money for us". She further adds, "If we do not dance as per the demands of the customer, we are thrown out of the job and left to starve." She says she gets paid 200 rupees per night. Most of the girls like Anju are stricken by poverty, hardships, unemployment, adverse social attitudes, lack of proper job skills and a false attitude of dressing up to date with the newly set fashions.

The government itself sees its failure to provide alternative sources of income to the prostitutes to make ends meet, as a major problem and challenge. The ban on dance cabins and restaurants recently announced by the women's wing of the Maoists could make these girls stoop lower to earn their daily buck if the government does not help provide jobs for them.

With politicians indirectly supporting the crime, as long as ‘their wallets are heavy’, saying one thing but doing another, it is, perhaps, ironical that former PM Girija Prasad Koirala is reported to have said at a conference, "The Nepalese are enjoying human rights. Not one single violation of human rights has happened in Nepal in the last two years".

A study by various NGO reports showed an estimated 200,000 Nepali girls working as sex workers globally out of which twenty percent are children. "Most of these girls after acquiring diseases such as HIV, are sent back to Nepal, with most continuing to work as prostitutes in the city," adds an activist.

The poverty and unemployment is so rampant that guardians themselves encourage prostitution. A parent, whose 13 year old girl was working as a sex worker had this to say to a question put forward by an NGO, "When Kamala comes every dashain, she brings us lots of money. She is well clad and she is no longer dying of hunger". She further added, "So what if she dies from a disease? Everyone eventually dies some day".

With the increasing number of child prostitutes in the city, the poor underaged girls are the most affected. Without the effective coordination by the NGOs, government, police, lawyers, judges and the Human Rights Commission in joining hands to combat this crime, thousands of children’s lives are set to be doomed forever and even for generations to come.

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