Till the end of last fiscal year, a total of 77 government offices in the district had not paid Rs 7.4 million to the NT. Still, 36 offices are yet to pay their phone bills worth Rs 1.9 million to the NT.
Regional Educational Directorate, District Education Office, Regional Forest Directorate, District Forest Office, Road Division Office, Women Development Office and Small and Cottage Industries Office among others still have not paid their telephone bills.
“This is the first time that we disconnected the telephone lines of government offices for not paying the bills,” Khag Prasad Gautam, accountant, NT office in Pokhara, told myrepublica.com. “In the past years, we could not muster enough courage to take such action fearing tremendous political pressure.”
Gautam, however, said the telecom company had only disconnected one-way traffic of the government offices. “If they do not pay back the amount in stipulated time frame, we will have to totally disconnect their telephone lines,” Gautam said. He also informed that the NT had not disconnected all the telephone lines of the government offices for the convenience of people.
According to Gautam, the dues of most of the government offices range between Rs 12,000 to Rs 150,000. Of this, the biggest chunk of due amounts was being held by security agencies. District Police Office, for instance, owed Rs 3.5 million in dues to the telecom giant.
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