Chisang River sand: A lifeline for hundreds of families

By Hari Prasad Koirala,Urlabari, Mar. 16: With no secure employment opportunities, disadvantaged families in Kanepokhari, Morang, have been earning livelihood by extracting and selling sand and gravel from the Chisang River.

“Construction work is tough and contractors tend to exploit workers.  Physically strong go for construction jobs while women and elderly are engaged in extracting the riverine materials,” said Gole Rishidev, who has been extracting sand from Chisang for more than 14 years.

According to Rishidev, there is no year-round agricultural work and JCB machines and excavators have taken over their jobs lately. Likewise, with the increasing land plotting, arable land has shrunk. He added, “I have been relying on the Chisang River to support my family."

Rishidev, 39, has four children, none of them attend school. Despite being a fourth-generation resident of Nepal, he said he could not register his children's birth because his citizenship is based not descent.

His family earns Rs. 1,500 to Rs. 2,000 per day. However, they must pay Rs. 100 per tractor-load of sand to the landowner from where the sand is extracted.

Like Rishidev's hundreds of families have made the Chisang River their lifeline.

Pujara Kisku, 40, from Hoklabari in Kanepokhari-1 and Dev Narayan Chaudhary, 61, together extract three tractor-loads of sand daily. Neither of them owns the land. Despite the challenges, both have managed to educate their children through sand extraction.

“I have married off my three daughters and I managed to provide for my family with an income that relied on the Chisang River. One of my sons studies in a boarding school,” said Chaudhary. He and Pujara, who earn up to Rs. 2,000 per day, said that working for contractors often comes with no payment guarantees.

Chaudhary, who has worked at the Chisang River for the past 14 years, proudly shared that he educated his daughters up to the postgraduate level. 

Sanu Rishidev, 46, shared a similar story. “There is hardly any work in the village. I once wished to go abroad for employment, but no one trusted me with the money. So, for the past 16 years, I have relied on the Chisang River to provide for the family,” said Sanu.

The whole family joins in extracting sand. "When we all work together, we can earn up to Rs. 2,000 a day,” he said.

With ongoing construction projects in the area, the demand for sand and gravel remains steady. From mid-June to mid-September, the government bans the extraction of river materials. During this period, these families work in nearby villages as farm labourers. 

Meanwhile, Kanepokhari Rural Municipality spokesperson Sushil Budhathoki said that the local government does not charge fees to labourers extracting sand from designated parts of the river. 

Budhathoki added that these labourers earn more from sand extraction than they would in the Prime Minister's Employment Programme, which explains their lack of interest in government employment initiatives.