- Friday, 3 October 2025
Purushottam Khatri
Monsoon may affect 2M people, over 14,000 personnel ready for disaster response
Three security bodies – Nepal Police, Armed Police Force (APF) Nepal and Nepali Army – have said that they have completed their respective tasks of the action plan and preparation for monsoon preparedness and response for this year. Only last week, the government at a meeting of the executive committee of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) chaired by Home Minister Bal Krishna Khand had endorsed the National Action Plan for Monsoon Preparedness and Response 2079.
Rs. 6.79bn disaster fund remains in stock
A disaster preparedness fund established by the federal government has a budget of Rs. 6.79 billion to be distributed to the people affected by the monsoon-induced disaster to reconstruct private houses. The budget, however, doesn’t include the amount allocated by various local levels. The district-level disaster management committee currently has a fund of Rs. 372.56 million in stock just for 33 districts out of 1.854 billion allocated for 77 districts.
Over 400,000 people leave Valley for election
Denizens in the Kathmandu Valley have started feeling less presence of vehicles and people on the roads of Kathmandu thanks to local level polls. Although the roads are not as deserted as during Dashain festival, movements of people and vehicles have surely become thinner, signaling that many people temporarily living in Kathmandu have left for their villages to cast votes in the 13 May poll.
Army prepares election-centric air patrolling
The Nepali Army (NA) said that it has kept a team with helicopters at three places outside the Kathmandu Valley round the clock, beginning 10 days before the local level elections. Considering the security threat in the election, the army has been keeping a team standby in Itahari of Eastern Command, Pokhara of Central Command and Surkhet of the Western Command, said Army Spokesperson and Brigadier General Narayan Silwal. In addition, there will be a separate team for daily air patrolling here in Kathmandu Valley only. The government has instructed the army to be ready to reach every polling station within 30 minutes of urgency.
Security is foremost requisite for successful polls
Security concern comes first and foremost at everyone’s mind when elections come. The country is just five days away from second local level elections slated for May 13 after successful conduction of the three-tier elections in 2017. Two other elections of the parliamentary and provincial are also happening this year. At this point, the main and only governing body, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) and the security agencies have been engaged in a series of security deliberations on possible challenges.
