Kathmandu, January 15:

The Centre for Karnali Development and Research (CKDR) today criticised the government for excluding Karnali region in the interim legislature.

“Political leaders speak about uplifting Karnali region in their speeches, but they hardly take trouble to implement their commitments in practice,” said Ghorakh Bahadur BC, chairperson of the CKDR, at a press conference here today. He said neither the interim constitution has mentioned anything about Karnali region nor has anyone from Karnali been nominated in the interim legislature. He added that the region would not develop as long as the centralised state mechanism existed in the country. “Karnali people must be given a chance to develop the region on their own for which the people are capable of executing any kind of programme,” he said.

Central member of the Nepali Congress-Democratic (NC-D), Jeevan Bahadur Shahi, said: “Karnali people have never got chance to show what they are capable of. The government has always been apathetic to the development of the backward zone,” he said.

Dhan Bahadur Buda, a CKDR member, said: “There are abundant resources in the region but they have never been utilised, due to which Karnali is lagging behind in development.” He demanded that the government take steps to develop Karnali region before the situation worsens further.