Khotang, January 2

Four ward chairpersons in Khotang’s Halesi Tuwachung Municipality have renewed their call against the decision to shift the municipal office elsewhere from the present location.

Of the 11 wards in the municipality, Ward No 2 Chairperson of Hari Kumar Khadka, Chair of Ward No 3 Bhalaraj Rai, Chair of Ward No 5 Ramesh Tiwari Khatri and Ward No 7 Chair Chaindra Rai submitted a memorandum to the ministry of federal affairs and local development via the district administration office today, seeking support to keep the municipal office in Chhapdanda itself.

A meeting of the executive of the municipality held about two weeks ago had decided to shift the existing municipal office to Kotgaira. The ward chairpersons concerned had walked out of the meeting then after writing a note of dissent against the decision. While they have been publicly speaking out their dissatisfaction against the decision ever since, about four days ago, town committees of three political parties including the CPN-UML, CPN-Maoist Centre and Federal Socialist Forum-Nepal had also submitted memorandums over the same issue.

Mahadevsthan Chairperson Rai called the proposed site for municipal office inaccessible. “On the one hand, the proposed place is out-of-the-way and steep; while on the other, siting the municipal office there will be detrimental to the conservation and promotion of historic sites and tourism sites of the Kirant community, such as Holesung and Rawachungadi,” Rai reasoned.

While many people are against the decision and say the decision was taken to serve vested interests of a few big fishes, Halesi Tuwachung mayor Iban Rai claimed that the decision to site the municipal office in Kotgaira was taken so as to build facilities such as playground, hospital and bus park in the other three sites that were offered to the municipality by the locals free of cost.