Kathmandu, August 30, 2006

The lost glory of the historic pond of Rani Pokhari, located at the heart of the capital city, is being revived, thanks to an effort to collect rainwater and drain it into the pond.

A project to harvest rainwater from the terraces of the Tri-Chandra Multiple Campus and draining it into rapidly drying pond is nearing completion.

“We are happy to say that the 336-year-old pond will be brimming with fresh water again,” Sahadev Shrestha, chief of the Public Parks and City Hall Department of Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC), said.

Rainwater would fill the pond even during dry season and help maintain the beauty of the pond. The Rani Pokhari, historically known as Nhoo Pukhoo, was built by King Pratap Malla in the year 1670 to console his wife, bereaved by deaths of their sons.

With the joint effort of the KMC and NGO Forum for Urban Water and Sanitation (NGOFUWS) and support from the UN HABITAT, the project was launched in June.

The project will have the capacity to collect 1,612,576 litres of water every year, out of which 1,291,000 litres will be fed into the pond. Rest of the water will be used by the campus for drinking and other purposes.

Prakash Chandra Amatya, executive director of the NGOFUWS, said, “The pond is drying rapidly as there is no natural or traditional water resource to feed water into it.

In addition, growing activities of extracting groundwater through boring wells is also causing the pond to dry up.”

Government irregularities cross Rs 53 billion

Auditor General Gehendra Nath Adhikari today disclosed that irregularities by government offices, committees and enterprises including district development committees have reached Rs 53.88 billion by 2005.

Releasing the annual reports prepared by the office of the Auditor General for four consecutive fiscal years upto 2005, Adhikari said that irregularities have come in huge amounts due to ‘weak and unsystematic’ accounting system.

Irregularities of over of Rs 53 billion have really troubled us as some money has appeared under irregular headlines while doing auditing and some money not being deducted as tax at source, coupled with unnecessary expenses without any heading.

Of the total irregularities, five ministries namely ministry of finance (MoF) has Rs 7.16 billion irregularities, ministry of housing, construction and physical planning Rs 3.52 billion, water resources ministry Rs 2.69 billion and local development ministry Rs 2.37 billion and education and sports ministry Rs 2.54 billion, says AG’s report.

Of the total irregularities, MoF secures the highest 25.10 percentage.