Siraha, March 2:

People are affected as government offices in Siraha that were vandalised during the Tarai agitation have not reopened yet.

Siraha CDO Shashishekhar Shrestha said that as documents and furniture in the offices were damaged during the agitation, they have not reopened the offices. There is only a peon in the Area Administration Office (AAO) in Lahan.

“As there is no staff in the AAO, I could not get my citizenship certificate,” Hem Chandra Paswan of Bastipur-2 said.

“Though I have been visiting the Zonal Transport Management Office to get a vehicle ownership certificate for the past 10 days, I have not got it as there are no staffers,” Kumar Singh Danuwar of Gaighat-1 said.

“The citizenship certificate distribution teams, which were said to be deployed from February 21, could not be deployed yet,” the DAO said.

The agitators vandalised the offices of the Department of Inland Revenue, Food Corporation, Postal Services, Division of Roads, District Forest department, Area Administration, Sanitation & Water Supply, Small & Cottage Industries, Lahan municipality, Zonal Transport, Underground Water Resource and Irrigation, District Traffic, Land Conservation and the office of the Maoists on January 23.

Peons said there was no furniture in the offices. Except security guards, there is nobody after the incidents of vandalism and fire in the offices on January 23.

The agitators caused a damage to property worth Rs 2.5 crores in the Office of the Department of Inland Revenue (ODIR) alone.

They vandalised four four-wheelers, two motorbikes, seven computers, two printers, two fax machines and a photocopy machine at the ODIR, accountant Basant Poudel there said, adding that they are finding it difficult to run the office as all documents were gutted.

Daily revenue collection of Rs 30 lakh has also been disrupted after the vandalism and the fire in the ODIR, Poudel said. Work in the DEO, Siraha municipality, DDC, Women Development Office, Land Reforms Office and Land Revenue Office has also halted.

Work will resume after the offices are repaired, CDO Shrestha said, adding that letters have been sent to the ministries for the repairwork and reconstruction.