The report prepared by a team led by Chief Secretary Madhav Ghimire has concluded that due to frequent threats by various underground armed outfits, government officials, especially those hailing from hill and mountainous areas, have almost no presence at Tarai-based offices and they also have almost zero confidence.[break]
The team, which included Secretaries Lila Mani Paudyal, Tana Gautam, Balananda Paudyal and Umakanta Jha, inspected the security sensitive districts last week, observed various government activities and projects and concluded that the situation is utterly disappointing. The team inspected the troubled districts of Dhanusha, Siraha, Mahottari and Saptari among others.
The report says that various armed outfits and cadres of sundry political parties have been threatening chief district officers in these districts either to change decisions in their favor or face dire consequences. "Various armed groups have been found sending groups to the CDO offices to threaten the CDOs and get decisions changed," reads the report, adding, "When the CDOs try to defend their decisions saying that the law doesn´t allow changing them, the armed outfits would ask, "Which law allowed you to reinstate parliament? Which law allowed you to abolish the monarchy?"
The report states that the CDOs in most troubled Tarai districts are compelled to work under intense pressure and are unable to discharging their duties in a free and fair manner.
The team, in its report, has instructed 11 ministries to immediately initiate necessary steps to maintain law and order and curb anomalies rampant at development projects due to lack of supervision by government staff.
"Most government officials normally don´t come out of their offices and neither do they observe ongoing development projects in the Tarai region, due to security threats," reads the report, adding, "Various outfits have taken undue advantage of the projects, following the absence of government staff."
Considering the seriousness of threats received by government staff, the team has also directed branch offices of Nepal Telecom in the districts concerned to provide a device to police officers to trace telephone conversations between armed outfits and their gangs. "We ask the telecom offices to provide such a facility to the police 24 hours to control crime," the report says.
As a single criminal uses several mobile phones, the team has also suggested to the telecom offices to issue a public notice to clients to renew their sim cards. "The process of sim card renewal can help identify criminal groups. And it can also curb the growing tendency of armed outfits using mobile phones for criminal purposes," the report goes on to say.
The report states that anomalies are rampant in education, local development and in forestry projects. "Some of the districts have created dummy schools and dummy teachers and misuse resources." The report has directed the Ministry of Education (MoE) to investigate such practices.
Similarly, the team´s report has instructed the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conversation (MoFSC) to cut the number of local government staff at district-level forestry offices. "It has been found that most local government staff at district forestry offices have links with various armed outfits," reads the report, "Collusion between local staff and armed outfits has been contributing to deforestation in various districts."
The team has instructed MoFSC to develop a mechanism to compensate for the deforestation in various parts of the Tarai.
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