Apropos of the news story “KMC prioritises four major working areas” (THT, November 6, Page 2), first and foremost KMC should prioritise civil behaviour and dealing with service seekers.

I find KMC staff one of the most uncouth who take sadistic pleasure in sending service seekers from room to room. Sometime ago, an ‘official’ tried to sweep away my polite enquiry for information with an unfriendly gesture of his hand forcing me to blurt out in English, which startled him. Dressed poorly and in torn shoes which I normally don suiting the dust and filth in Kathmandu, he clearly took me for a vagrant.

KMC’s main priority is to serve people and they should be doing so politely and professionally without taking the services seekers at face value. So, KMC’s first priority is to have a clean, bright, transparent, airy reception area with five-star receptionists and telephone operators who can offer information and guidelines to people without them having to go from pillars to posts. Second priority should be complete annihilation of corruption, be it five rupees or more. If something is not possible at all, how can money makes it possible? For example, most of the houses in the filthy lanes of core city are as tall as 12-storey which people can see with their naked eyes from miles away.

I was flabbergasted when an owner in a narrow lane  told me that he would first take the building completion certificate as per the approval for four and half storey and will start adding more storeys later. Shocked, I asked him how he was going to hide the illegal floors from the KMC building inspectors. He just smiled. I hope according to one of their listed priorities ‘enforcement of building codes’ they would start checking the completed buildings against the approval and start demolishing the illegal floors and encroachment of public spaces like common ‘sagal’.

The other KMC priorities are well thought and should turn Kathmandu into a clean, green, orderly and a city of joy. Good luck KMC in your noble efforts!

Manohar Shrestha, Kathmandu

Child labour

I have been witnessing how children have been forced to work menial jobs at the restaurants and hotels. These vulnerable children do not even get paid for what they do for the most part. The unscrupulous owners have been hiring them in a very atrocious manner for their vested interests. In my speculation, this is not the issue connected with the wages they pay or not. The truth is that these people are stealing the future and potential of children who could do something exponentially in their future. Without educational opportunity children cannot progress in their life. So, the government must make it mandatory for all employers that they make arrangements for their education at least in public schools either in the morning or in the evening. Nobody should be left illiterate simply because their parents cannot afford to send their kids to schools. Employers must also have some sort of social responsibility.

Shiva Neupane, Melbourne