During the Maoist protest in Kathmandu-2

Maoist cadres at a park after throwing papers and plates by having snacks and meals. The garbage heaped on the roads due to the Maoist protests against the government in Kathmandu.  Serene road in front of the Supreme Court and Singh Durbar west gate during the protest [Bottom, left]. There was tight security situation.

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During the Maoist protest in Kathmandu-1

Maoist rally just near by the Singh Durbar, the central secretariat of the government where most of the Ministries including Prime Minister's Office are located, alert security forces, Maoist thrown garbage on the roads, a child with a mother participating in the protest rally at Maitighar of Kathmandu.




























Unified Communist Party of Nepal Maoist is protesting on the streets in the name of 'civilian supremacy', demanding the government to allow opposition UCPN Maoist to lead new coalition government.

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Is this really civil supremacy of UCPN Maoists?

Bishnu Prasad Aryal
Kathmandu, November 12

Hundreds of cadres of the Young Communist League, affiliated to the UCPN Maoist, strode on the streets with sticks and red ribbons around Singh Durbar, the centre of the government offices today to gherao it as part of the two-day programme. Addressing their cadres, senior Maoist leaders were mimicking about the civil supremacy, human rights and peace.

On the contrary, the YCL cadres were barring the people from walking on the road freely on their way to home and office since 8AM to 4PM. Ironically, Maoist cadres were excreting urine on the outer walls of Singh Durbar and accumulating papers, plastics and other materials on the roads after having food and snacks.  Moreover, all the traffic movements were halted throughout this period in Kathmandu.

Meanwhile, thousands of ordinary people suffered unnecessarily from the Maoist movement for achieving state power. "They are not realizing about people's human rights and difficulty they are facing now. They are only hungry for being Prime Minister and ministers in the government," said the commuters in a furious mood.

Uma Shrestha, owner of a photo studio at Hanumansthan near by south gate of Singh Durbar, said that she had nothing to do with their movement for power. "However, we suffered more than enough. It was so tense and terrifying during the scuffle between police and demonstrators," she added. "We closed the doors and remained inside for about two hours."

Children and elderly people of the area were badly affected with explosion of tear-gas shells. "Children were crying and our eyes also ached badly," Shrestha said. "Sets of furniture of Kalinchowk Furniture Industry and Chagunarayan Restaurant were damaged while demonstrators entered there," she informed.

Shrestha earned nothing today whereas she used to earn Rs 500 to 1,000 per day. "We are again terrified what will happen tomorrow," she worried.

Deepak Baral, a staff of Janaki Medical College in Janakpur and a representative for Kathmandu valley, said that he came from Sinamangal to Agriculture Development Bank at Ramshah Path, a distance of about four kilometres on foot for an important work. "What kind of civil supremacy is this?", he questioned.

People from all walks of life including students, business community, laymen, and government staffers were badly affected from the strike. Only ambulances were running on the roads. "The life of ordinary people became so hard today," he added.

Bidur Dahal, a Maoist worker from Sindhuli, a businessman and a staff of Hotel Yak and Yeti, also complained of the Maoist activities on the roads. "I came to attend the protest. However, as I have to go to Baneshwor for my work, they blocked me to walk on the road and threatened to do anything," he said. "Is it right? This is the extreme atrocity. This way of beating and threatening will not work any more," he expressed surrealistically.

The demonstrators pelted stones on the security forces. There were about five dozens of Maoist leaders and cadres were injured when police used force to control over the demonstrators entering restricted zones.

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Maoist cadre assaults female GM with offensive words

Bishnu Prasad Aryal
Lalitpur, November 9

It is more than enough. A Maoist cadre assaults the character of a female government staff on the gender-biased discrimination with mean words.

Arjun Neupane from Chauthe, nearby Sisdole landfill site in Nuwakot, phoned Dr Sumitra Amatya, General Manager at the Solid Waste Management and Resource Mobilisation Centre under the Ministry of Local Development on Sunday evening at 9:00 PM. Neupane used offensive mean words based on the gender discrimination and diplomatically threatened her to follow his suggestion.

"He phoned me last night offending and torturing me psychologically," said Amatya. "Now, I have a headache and feeling very uneasy because of his offensive words," she added. "I think I should quit my job if such discrimination continues."

Neupane, who used 'woman doesn't have Adam's apple', scolded and pressured her to fulfill his demands. "It is hard to bear such embarrassment by the night," she said. "It is not the way to talk about their demands. They must visit my office and talk about their problem," she grieved.

The SWMRMC has been providing compensation and carrying out development projects for the people affected by the Sisdole landfill site since 2005.

LALITPUR: Locals around Aletar landfill site in Nuwakot threatened that they would disrupt the garbage disposal from the next week unless 14 persons were given the job within a week. According to the Solid Waste Management and Resource Mobilisation Centre, a group of 36 persons led by Kedar Ojha submitted the ultimatum on Sunday. Another group led by Bhavana Karki also warned to obstruct the garbage disposal after nine days. Karki also demanded the SWMRMC to provide jobs for other 15 persons five days ago.

Dipendra Bahadur Oli, legal officer at the SWMRMC, said that he was also threatened many times. "The angry locals scolded me with abusive words and threatened me to break my legs many times," he added.

Neupane did not accept using insulting words against Amatya, however, realized that it was wrong to phone by night. "I told her on phone to be responsible and address the people's demands assured by the government," he said. "The government did not allocated budget for the roads and development in the local area in time."

Interestingly, the annual fiscal budget is yet to be approved even after the five months from presentation of annual budget and programmes in the parliament due to the Maoist obstruction in the parliamentary meeting of the Constituent Assembly.

Advocate Meera Dhungana said that it was crime and example of insecurity in the country. "There is law against such discrimination but implementation is very poor in the country," she added.

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None of 75 traffic plans well implemented in 20 years

Bishnu Prasad Aryal
Kathmandu, November 6

Some 75 plans on urban transport system have been developed during the last two decades. However, no plan was effectively implemented owing to the lack of coordination among four different implementing government bodies.

The Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Labour and Transport (MoLT), the Ministry of Local Development, and the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works (MoPPW) have been working on the transport management of the country but to no avail regarding the achievement.

"The achievement is nothing significant and the transport system in the Kathmandu Valley remains haphazard making the city polluted, ugly and unworthy of healthy living," said Dr Pushkar Bajracharya, member of the National Planning Commission. "There were 75 urban transport development plans formulated but not a single policy was fully implemented," he added. "The advocacy on the transport management in the last two decades has been fruitless."

Superintendent of Police Pawan Prasad Kharel of Metropolitan Traffic Police Divison said that the lack of coordination was the major factor of the problem. "The NPC formulated policies but all of the programmes were not sent for the practices due to the lack of budget and other lapses," he said.

The NPC started including the urban development and transport management in the seventh five-year plan (1985-1990). "The gross negligence on the plans since the beginning pushed the urban transport management into an abyss due to the lack of coordination among the implementing agencies but not because of resources," said Purna Kadaria, secretary at the MoPPW. "If this trend persists, the problem will be multiplied day by day," he said.

According to the MoLT, there were only 26,000 vehicles of all sorts registered in Bagmati Zone in 1980. The number of those vehicles counts to 444,700 in 2009.

The law provisions the concentration of PM10, pollution level in the air, upto 120 ug/m3 (24 hours). Now it has reached upto 200 ug/m3 in roadsides, 149 ug/m3 in residential area and 134 ug/m3 in average in the valley, a report of the Asian Development Bank says. The ratio of pollution was 100 ug/m3 in average in the valley in 2003.

About 19,000 children below five year died of respiratory problem caused by emission pollution in Nepal in the past years.

Kamal Raj Pande, joint-secretary at the MoPPW, said, "Forty-two per cent of the pollution is caused by vehicle emission, affecting in the climate change. Therefore, we must adopt the sustainable policies and programmes to control the haphazard."

David Irwin, leader of the Kathmandu Sustainable Transport Project of ADB on Technical Assistance, said that the formulation of visionary policies and law were necessary to tackle the problem. Coordination and implementation of policies are must to solve these problems, he said. "Encouragement for the public vehicles and control over the private cars and motorcycles will be best way to manage the transport of the Kathmandu Valley," he added.

The ADB has started the project of 6.5 months from October 5 to study on a vision for sustainable urban transport, including immediate measures to improve the operations of public transport and upgrading of the bus parks, traffic management plan for the central area of Kathmandu and pedestrian only areas within the old towns of Kathmandu.

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Kathmandu lacks all the standards of metropolis

Bishnu Prasad Aryal
Kathmandu, November 4

The Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) is ineligible to be a metropolis as per the international standards of the metropolitan city. Meanwhile, KMC has even failed to meet the criteria set by the national law.

"KMC is a city of chaos rather than a metropolis," said Er Devendra Dongol, chief at the Physical Urban Development and Construction Department, KMC. "Foreign people from metropolitan cities laugh at hearing on Kathmandu as metropolis," he added.

Dongol said the rules envisioned in the country's law lack the international standards of the concept. "Interestingly, those existing norms are also yet to be applied in developing the city. This is the local metropolitan city, which was chaotically developed earlier and declared later without any standards," he added.

There is about one million population in KMC, spread in area of 50 square kilometres, which is the capital city of Nepal.

KATHMANDU: Long-pending Council Meeting of the Kathmandu Metropolitan City to approve the annual budget and programmes is likely to take place within 2-4 days. It was necessary to approve annual budget and programme before mid-July for carrying out development projects in the civic body. "The budget and programmes have been already prepared," said Niranjan Baral, executive chief of KMC. "The final reading will be completed soon and the budget will be approved in 2-4 days," Baral added. Baral has been verbally assuring to approve budget 'within two weeks' since August. -- BPA

According to the Local Self-Governance Act 2055BS, a metropolis should have at least 300,000 population, well-developed roads, access of safe drinking water, health facilities, education and electricity, systematic urban development, managed transportation, good sanitation and environmentally safe place, housing plan, preparation of land-usage map, separate places for industries, residential area, farm land, parks, and enough greeneries.

The Act also provisions to conserve rivers and water resources, forests, culture and heritage sites, preserve the civil rights for daily-consuming food stuffs, manage garbage, develop shelter houses for helpless and homeless people, and provide security to the people maintaining law and order.

"The implementation of 95 per cent of those provisions is a far cry," said financial officer Nava Raj Dhakal at the Revenue Department, KMC. "How can we expect all these infrastructure development here while it is not worthy of even a good municipality?", Dhakal wondered.

As per the international standards, there should be some five million people for a metropolitan city, free education and health services certain number of people based on age and social factors, well-planned roads and settlements, sufficient supply of water and electricity, enough security to people and basic infrastructure development. "Nothing among them has been developed or maintained in the KMC," said Dongol. "No drinking water in pipes and some 12 hours power-cut every day are KMC's irritating facilities while the Bagmati and Bishnumati rivers are turned to sewerages."

 Niranjan Baral, executive chief of KMC and government secretary, said that it was good attempt among the developing countries although there were various lapses and constraints in developing the metropolitan city.

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Billions of govt property being wasted in ministries

Bishnu Prasad Aryal
Kathmandu, November 3

The outer looks and design of the Ministry of Local Development (MoLD), which was crafted in the period of Ranas, look grand and beautiful. On the contrary, the premises are full of unused vehicles, damaged furniture, utensils and stationeries everywhere.

In similar way, rows of unused vehicles, heap of furniture, computers and other utensils are common phenomena in all of the government ministries. More than a billion of rupees is being rotten on the premises of the Ministries of the Government of Nepal, according to high level source at the MoLD.

“However, the concerned authorities are aloof from utilising them properly,” said Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya, spokesperson for the MoLD. “Such property worth at least Rs one billion has been wasted grossly in all the ministries due to the negligence,” he added.

There are more than two dozens of ministries and many dozens of departments under those ministries. None of the ministries is seriously handling the government properties, said Thapaliya. “The properties should be inspected in each six months and prepared the details every year by categorising with maintainable and no maintainable property. However, it is yet to be practiced.”

According to the law and bylaws, those properties such as vehicles, computers, furniture and utensils should be auctioned annually by meeting rules. “Law has been implemented nowhere well in our country,” Thapaliya worried. “It’s the responsibility of secretaries and department heads to maintain the system. But we could not have done yet because of the various obstacles,” he conceded.

Thapaliya also admitted that the MoLD has failed to utilise its materials worth at least Rs two million. “The pipes and other materials worth millions of rupees have been dumped in the District Development Committees, foreign aided projects while many seized vehicles have been garaged at the custom offices in the border areas,” he said. More than a dozen vehicles including Land Cruiser and Toyota brands are dumped at the MoLD premises.

Lekhnath Paudel, spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, said the process of auction was very lengthy and problematic issue. “There is also lack of responsibility and priority to utilise the property,” he said, adding that bulk of vehicles and materials are wasted in the ministry and its departments.

A senior official at the Ministry of Home Affairs, where hundreds of vehicles including confiscated ones are being damaged, said that they have started auctioning such vehicles. “We don’t have actual records of all the vehicles and objects accumulated in the ministry and its departments,” he said anonymously.

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A glimpse of Kathmandu Valley

 

 

A few views taken from the top of the Ministry of Local Development, Pulchowk in Laitpur, which is nearly at the centre of the Kathmandu Valley. These scenes are mostly of north face.

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Foreign aids blamed for making the country dependent

Bishnu Prasad Aryal
Kathmandu, November 2

Dependency of Nepal on foreign aids for development activities is blamed for barring the country from utilising its own resources. Despite innumerable international projects of the local development in the nation, the achievement is criticised as not satisfactory.

“It is good for the country that international donors have been assisting us in various development programmes and teaching us how to work in the local level,” said Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya, spokesperson for the Ministry of Local Development. “However, we will be disappointed if we analyse the achievement of the international aids,” he added.

Thapaliya said  the culture of foreign aids  has made the country be dependent on others instead of learning from them and tapping own resources available in the country for the development. “We have developed a bad culture of dependency on them. On the other hand, innumerable foreign projects are implemented in all the 75 districts of the country but the number of beneficiaries is very few,” he added.

According to the MoLD, the foreign aided projects are supporting in 26 programmes out of 43 programmes on infrastructure, roads, drinking water, electricity and social development in the local level. Rs 35.69 billion has been allocated for the MoLD in the current fiscal year. Among them, Nepal Government bears Rs 23.90 billion, foreign grants account to Rs 9.99 billion while foreign loan credits to Rs 1.7 billion.

This is the annual ratio of foreign aids allocated for the local development, said Indu Ghimire, joint-spokesperson for the MoLD. “However, we don’t have any special records of development progress from the foreign aids,” Ghimire said. “Neither, the National Planning Commission nor the Ministry of Finance has maintained the amount of total foreign aids given to Nepal and development statistics,” she added.

UN Supported Projects [Local Governance Community Development Program (LGCDP) (basket funding by UNDP, Norway and other donors) – 75 districts, Rural Urban Partnership Program (RUPP) – 30 municipalities, Community Owned Primary Education (COPE) – 6 Districts and 10 –municipalities, Public Private Partnership for Urban Environment (PPPUE) – 10 municipalities, Decentralized Action for Children and Women (DACAW) – 15 districts, Population and Reproductive Health Integrated Project (PARHI) - 6 districts]

IFAD funded Projects [Western Uplands Poverty Alleviation Project (WUPAP) – 8 districts]

WFP/ GTZ/DFID supported Projects [Rural Community Infrastructure Works Program (RCIW) – 25 districts, Municipalities Periodic Planning, Poverty Reduction and Social Inclusion (Udle/GTZ) – 21 municipalities]

World Bank Funded Project [ Rural Access Improvement and Decentralize Program (RAIDP) – 20 districts]

Asian Development Bank funded projects [Decentralized Rural Infrastructure and Livelihood Project (DRILP) – 20 districts, Governance Reform Program (GRP) – at the center level]

SWISS Development Cooperation Supported Projects [Trail Bridge Sub Sector Program (TBSSP) – 60 districts, District Road Support Program (DRSP) – 6 districts, LILY, LISP (Helvetas)]

Finland Supported Projects [Rural Village Water Resource Management Project (RVWRMP) -9 districts, Strengthening Environmental Administration and Management at Local Level –Nepal (SEAM-N) – 2 districts and 3 municipalities]

Thapaliya also said that the coverage of a foreign programme limits to construction of 30-40Km of trail and track roads in 3-5 years of period in 4-5 village development committees. “Every year, the same road is repeatedly made, which is the misuse of loans,” he said. “About 15 per cent of their assistance is spent on paying their technicians. They never insist on hiring Nepali technicians.”

Requesting anonymity, a representative from the prominent donor agency among all admitted the ineffectiveness of foreign grants, increasing dependency on others, misuse of development budget. “We are working amidst many problems and want to work on the government leadership. We have taken it seriously and preparing to develop a stronger mechanism to check corruption,” he added.

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This is how the art of life represents

Osho Samadhi at Tapoban where remains of holy and celestial body of Osho Rajneesh have been earthed.

Images at the Tapoban park > up and below

 

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