Janakpurdham, January 21

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Local Development Kamal Thapa today clarified that the government won’t buckle under the pressure of the agitation to address the demands of the agitating parties.

Inaugurating a Border Area Development Programme introduced by the government targeting villages and municipalities along the southern frontier of the eight Tarai districts in Mahottari, Bardibas, today, Thapa expressed the government’s preparedness to resolve demarcation-related issues through talks.

“As talks are going on with the agitating parties now also, we’re ready to resolve any disputed issue trough talks itself,” said the minister, who also hailed the constitution as one of the best in the world.

“To tell the truth, our charter is the model one in entire Asia and hence all the talk that the constitution doesn’t guarantee the rights of this or that community are just malicious rumours,” the minister argued.

“Everyone has the right to agitate in a peaceful way, but doing the same on the highways and entry points is not good and such tactics won’t help in any way to amend the statute,” he added.

Expressing his confidence that the problem in the Madhes would soon end and normalcy would return, the DPM stressed the need of people unite for development of the country rather than agitate.

Besides, Federal Affairs and Local Development Ministry Joint-secretary Reshamiraj Pande, various other government officials, including local development officers, municipal executive officers, VDC secretaries of eight districts, namely Parsa, Bara, Rautahat, Sarlahi, Dhanusha, Mahottari, Siraha and Saptari were also present on the occasion today.

A total of 109 VDCs and seven municipalities of the districts share the border with India.

According to Joint-secretary Pande, the government has allocated 4.9 billion rupees for implementation of the programme in five years’ time.