KATHMANDU/DHANGADI, MAY 25

Forest and Environment Minister Prem Ale, who was the butt of a joke earlier this month for claiming that trees give carbon dioxide to humans, has kicked up a row by distributing oxygen cylinders in his home district Doti with his photograph on them.

While distributing health materials in Doti, the minister said he was distributing 75 cylinders for Doti and 50 for Kailali. 'Of them, 15 were provided by the Health Service Department, I bought the rest of them,' he said.

Even on cylinders that were brought from China, the minister has pasted pamphlets with his photo.

Even the medicines distributed had the minister's photos pasted on the packets.

The minister's personal secretariat administration assistant Bhakta Ale, however, claimed the pictures were pasted on the cylinders and medicine packets as he had bought them. According to him, the minister has spent over six million rupees to procure the health items that were distributed today.

Advocate Pankaj Kumar Karna told THT in Kathmandu that if Minister Ale took credit for the supplies gifted by China then it was unfortunate. He said authorities concerned must make sure that the minister didn't evade tax for the supplies he claimed to have bought.

A version of this article appears in the print on May 26, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.