We have seen in the past that the major political parties, whoever and whenever ascended the political helm, had split the ministries to accommodate their loyal lawmakers in the ministerial chairs. Has any government so far shown any interest to find out whether these ministries were doing their tasks to the satisfaction of the common people? So far, there are more than two dozen ministries designed to serve the nation and its people.

Political leaders talk much about the development works being done in the country. It was not a surprising but sad news to read “Humla local reps in capital to revive rice supply” (THT, June 27, Page 1) when the newly elected people’s representatives should have been focusing their effort on development programmes. Instead, they are in the capital wandering around Nepal Food Corporation (NFC) and other different government offices to resume the supply of rice to their district. What a shame on the government and the NFC? Other remote districts are also food deficit areas. I am not so sure about whether the concerned ministries and departments have put any efforts to seek other better options, such as, digging irrigation canals, rather than airlifting rice forever. The government through NFC is supplying rice at a subsidized price to these districts using air transportation. However, this time the private airlines have excessively raised the cargo charge. As a result, the NFC was unable to supply rice to Humla. Why does the government not use Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) rather than private airlines? Or why doesn’t the government call for bidding among the private airlines for supplying rice to these remote districts? I hope there are not any commission games on air cargo charges.

Rai Biren Bangdel, Maharajgunj

Roadmap

Apropos of your editorial “Service counts” (June 29, Page 8), if Janardhan Sharma, the only working minister at the moment, can install traffic lights and CCTVs over Zebras all around Kathmandu Valley, he would have done full justice to his office and tenure.

While doing away with 15 percent share on the fines collected from errant road users is a progressive step, it is to be seen if the traffic police will show the same zeal and zest in controlling traffic violations without this monetary incentive.

It might not be possible for him to implement all the 84 points envisaged in the roadmap in nine months to a year before the next government takes over. But even if he manages to implement a few important ones like the ones above, his stature is likely to grow further, especially after his success in curbing load shedding. What he should also do is to induct urbane and educated unemployed youths on traffic duties. It would be nice to see urbane, educated youth, especially sociology and humanities post graduates, managing traffic as in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Manohar Shrestha, Kathmandu