KATHMANDU, May 16: The Pashupati Area Development Trust (PADT) has banned vehicular movement along the Tilganga-Guheshwari road section under pressure from the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The UN body had repeatedly written to the PADT not to allow vehicles in the World Heritage Site.
The cultural conservation body of the United Nations (UN) has maintained that a public road should not be allowed to operate within a World Heritage Site. The UNESCO had issued stern warnings to the PADT of excluding Pashupati from the World Heritage Site list if it failed to comply with the demand.
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The trust had also been repeatedly instructed by the Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Civil Aviation to shut the road while the Supreme Court has also passed a verdict to stop vehicular movement on the road section.
The PADT said that necessary measures have been taken to close the road permanently. The UNESCO had first set the deadline of February 2003 for the government to shut the road. It had even claimed that the heritage site would be demoted to the endangered site if the road was not closed.
However, the PADT and the Government of Nepal kept dilly-dallying on the matter. The UNESCO asked the PADT multiple times to close the road. But the PADT had been turning a deaf ear to the orders of the Supreme Court and the government as well.
Member Secretary of the trust Pradeep Dhakal informed Republica that all necessary legal actions have been taken in order to shut down the 855 meters long road. He claimed that the road was causing a massive amount of pollution in the heritage site.
