Kathmandu, May 8 :

Alleging Tek Bahadur Dangi, chief executive officer (CEO) of Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) of misusing NTB funds and making efforts to foil the mass movement in April under the direction of Mandales (royalists), the employees of NTB padlocked the NTB office today demanding the resignation of Dangi.

Talking to this daily Pradip Basnet, assistant officer at NTB said, “We have given an ultimatum of 24 hours for Dangi to resign.” If Dangi does not resign, we would be forced to ad-opt other measures that w-ould compel him to quit NTB, he said, without giving further details on what other measures would be.

Dangi has denied all the allegations. “People with vested interests, particularly who have lost their jobs at NTB and who are on the verge of being laid off, have stoked this propaganda,” Dangi said while talking to this daily.

Basnet accused Dangi of carrying out several jobs under the direction of Ma-ndales, including the laying off of Subash Niraula, director of Tourism Production and Resources Development Department a-nd Mahesh Khatri and Ku-shal Naharki.

“Though there are dozens of questionable acts that Dangi has executed under the direct order of Bharat Keshar Singh, a sycophant of the King. He has misused $50,000 sanctioned for the King’ visit to United Nations General Assembly. Though the visit was cancelled later, the amount never made its way back to NTB. Dangi, in cooperation with travel agents, embezzled the amount,” Niraula said.

Giving clarifications on the issue, Dangi said that the executive committee takes all such decisions. “We had allocated a fund for the King’s visit. but as the visit was cancelled, the money was returned to the organisation. Few hundred dollars, however, were sp-ent during the process.”

“Regarding the budget allocated for religious tourism, it is one of the most prioritised area under our annual work programme. If some one says that this has been misused, then it’s only a vested interest to defame the organisation and the executive committee,” Dangi said.