Dhankuta, January 17 A fresh agitation has started in Dhankuta lately seeking the status of provincial headquarters for the municipality. The agitation, started today marking the day when the former government led by prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba had decided to pick Biratnagar as the temporary headquarters for Province 1, snubbing locals who had been lobbying to turn the erstwhile regional headquarters into the provincial capital. “As Dhankuta is suitable for provincial headquarters in all respects, the fresh agitation is to pile pressure on the Provincial Assembly to heed our calls,” said local Sundarbabu Shrestha, who is also the coordinator of a struggle committee formed to create pressure for the same demand. “Dhankuta has every physical infrastructure needed for a provincial headquarters, so we have asked the Provincial Assembly not to look past Dhankuta when it comes to declaring the permanent provincial headquarters,” said the coordinator of the struggle committee. On the first day of the third phase of agitation today, the locals took out a rally from Madanchowk that went around of the bazaar before returning to the same place where the rally concluded in a meeting. Dhankuta has a total of 391 government offices and has over 48,600 ropani government land. Locals argue that declaring this hill district the provincial headquarters would save a huge budget of the provincial government as it would not have to buy land and develop physical infrastructure. READ ALSO:

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