Local level gets Rs. 80 million in royalty

BY THAKUR PRASAD ACHARYA,Myagdi, May 26: Annapurna Rural Municipality of Myagdi is going to receive a royalty of more than Rs. 80 million from the federal government in the current fiscal year. 

The rural municipality, which is also known as the hub of hydropower projects and has a good prospect for tourism, will receive the royalty amount of Rs. 80,078,000 for utilising natural resources in the region, informed chief administrative officer Amrit Subedi. He said that the rural municipality had already received Rs. 7.8 million and the remaining amount would be received by the end of the fiscal year. 

The executive board has decided that the received amount will be spent on development plans and social sectors by categorising wards into the most affected and least affected wards. Subedi said that wards which are closest to and mostly affected by hydropower projects would receive 25/25 per cent of the royalty and the remaining 50 per cent of the royalty would be used for the municipal-level plans. 

Subedi said that the rural municipality was formulating policies for easy distribution of the royalty. 

Meanwhile, locals of Narchyang, a village in Ward No. 4, have demanded 50 per cent of the royalty as the ward was the most affected by hydropower projects. Ward char Lok Bahadur Fagami said that he had demanded 50 per cent of the royalty to Narchyang in the executive committee meeting. He said, "Most of the hydropower projects are conducted in Narchyang. We have lost our land and water resources. Our lifestyle has changed and the village has lost its beauty due to excessive extended wires."

Disagreeing with the decision of the executive, he said that they would go for protest if their demand was not addressed. Mistri Khola Hydroelectric Project with a capacity of 42 megawatt and Ghalemdi Hydropower Project with a capacity of six megawatt are in operation in Annapurna. The construction work of Ghaar Khola Hydropower with a capacity of 14 megawatt, Nilgiri Cascade Hydropower with a capacity of 109 megawatt and Rele Khola Hydropower with a capacity of six megawatt are at the final stage.