Continuing protests bring Dhanusha’s Nagrain to a halt

By Our Correspondent

Dhalkebar, Jan 15 : For one-and-a-half months now, all services and works in Nagrain Municipality, in Dhanusha district, have come to a standstill. 

Administration, education, health, agriculture and several other major as well as basic services have been shut since December 2, 2022, as all the government employees in the municipality have been staging a sit-in demanding unpaid wages.

The reason behind the delay in providing wages to the employees is said to be the inability to organise the executive meeting of the municipal council. The meeting, which was to be held on June 24, 2022, hasn’t been held yet.

“I have called for the meeting multiple times. However, deputy-mayor and ward chairpersons from the CPN-UML have shown reservations continuously,” said Binay Kumar Yadav, Mayor of Nagrain Municipality. Without the executive meeting, the salaries of employees cannot be paid formally. 

However, Deputy-Mayor Radha Devi Yadav informed that they would accept the call for the meeting only after the local government amended self-centric changes in the procedure related to local government operation by previous Mayor Prameshwor Yadav.

Cause of dispute

After the 2017 local elections, the municipality had a majority of representatives from the Nepali Congress (NC), including both mayor and deputy-mayor. 

In 2019, the then municipal council amended two provisions in the local government operation procedure.

The Section 4(C) of the procedure stated that a municipal-level project can be operated by forming a consumer committee under the presence of a member of municipal council or municipal representatives. However, it was amended and changed into: “Other than in a ward-level project, a consumer committee should be formed in the presence of a municipal official or representative selected by the mayor.”

“If the amendment is corrected and the procedure implemented in its prevailing form, we will visit the municipality for the meeting anytime they want,” said Deputy-Mayor Radha Devi.

10,000 students barred from education Around 10,000 students from 16 community schools in the municipality have been deprived of their right to education as the teachers and officials are in protest. Moreover, even students have started to take the matter into the streets demanding their classes be resumed at the earliest.

However, neither the teachers’ nor the students’ demands have been addressed by the municipality, which is suffering from the political differences between the officials and representatives itself.

“We have been left in dismay. It’s saddens us students that we have to ask teachers and local level representatives to solve their problems without affecting our education,” said Subhash Sah, a student at Rajeshwor Nidhi Secondary School. The students haven’t been able to sit in the terminal examinations of the schools and fill the examination form for the Secondary Education Examination (SEE).

Vaccination drive affected

Since employees in the municipality are protesting, the vaccination programme has also come to a halt.

Vaccines required for new born children up to 15-month-old have not been administered regularly. Among 13 different vaccines, PCV, BCG, Measles and Rubella and others, are administered regularly by health centres. 

However, locals informed that they couldn’t meet officials at health centres to administer the vaccines.

Senior citizens also in street

Since the municipality hasn’t provided social security allowance to senior citizens for the past six months, elderlies have also taken to the street to protest. 

A senior citizen struggle committee has been formed under the leadership of local Bhola Das.