Contaminated tap water

LETTERS

This refers to the news article “Valley water infected with coliform” (THT, Aug. 7, Page 1). This information comes from a bacteriological analysis conducted by the National Public Health Laboratory has revealed that water from taps in most of the houses in Kathmandu contains high level of coliform bacteria. It is reported that they can cause gastroenteritis, dysentery,

jaundice, Hepatitis and typhoid fever etc. This is gross negligence of not only the water supplying company but also of our Health Department. This should be called as open

medical corruptions because more than eighty per cent of the people cannot afford the

drinking water in the jars sold in the market under various names, which are mostly

spurious barring a few. They all are bound to use the tap water, which can make them sick and they have to crowd the hospitals for treatment. If only the tap water were drinkable, the people would be safe from the water-borne diseases. But, for some it is business selling the water in jars or bottles labelled “pure drinking water” at a high price. Meanwhile, the government is totally indifferent to the supply of clean drinking water to the people.

Rajendra Gurbacharya, Kathmandu

Name game

The recent vandalism in colleges with foreign names has made me wonder as to where we are heading. I do not understand what the name of a particular institution has got to do with the quality of the education it imparts. So, if a college is called Sayapatry or Makhamali, will the quality improve? Our communist brethren should be more worried about the curriculum and teachers’ quality rather than the college name. And, by the way, isn’t it hypocritical and double-standard on their part that their party has a foreign name— The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) should also look for a Nepali name rather than indulge in violence with soft targets while thriving on and preaching imported ideology.

Sangpo Lama, via e-mail

Anguish

This is with reference to the article “Public vehicles violate rules while cops merely look on” (THT Aug. 6, Page 2). It is seen as one of the daunting problems these days.

Passengers wait at the bus station with the hope of getting a seat but in reality they barely get it. They are forced to hang on to the door because they are in a rush to reach their

destination on time. I totally don’t agree with the statement that President of Federation of Nepalese Transport Entrepreneurs gave. It is sheer negligence on the part of cops. There is one traffic cop for every 1.6 km road, so what are the traffic police doing? On the

other hand, the passengers are there to suffer. Passengers don’t have any other alternative so they are forced to travel uncomfortably. Taking advantage, the public vehicles carry more passengers than the vehicles are designed to carry. It is high time that serious attention is paid to solve this problem.

Nischal Dhungel, via e-mail