Chitwan's Gen-G group has demanded strict action against the culprits over the burning of garbage on the banks of the Narayani River.

The Chitwan District Sports Development Committee has also submitted a memorandum to the Bharatpur Metropolitan City on Sunday regarding the incident of burning waste generated on the riverbank while organizing a sports and business festival.

‘The festival has become more violent since the end of the month. It has been a month since we submitted a petition to the metropolis demanding action against the concerned parties after the waste was burned there, but since we have not seen any action taken, we have submitted the letter again today,’ said Sagar Karki, founder engineer of Better Chitwan. Better Chitwan and the Gen-G Group had filed a complaint for action on November 20.

In the letter, they have warned that if action is not taken within 48 hours against those burning waste on the riverbank, they will go to higher authorities for action. ‘If the action process is not initiated, we inform you that we will be forced to move forward from the civil level through the Supreme Court, constitutional bodies and other legal channels,’ the letter states. They submitted a letter to the Chief Administrative Officer of Mahanar.

Upon receiving the letter, Chief Administrative Officer Laxmi Prasad Poudel expressed his commitment to bring the guilty party to justice by 5 pm on the 9th. ‘We have thoroughly understood this and are taking action. We have taken some time so that people do not think that we took action out of prejudice,’ Poudel said. He said that ‘action’ will be taken after the municipal meeting on Poush 20.

The Chitwan District Sports Development Committee had organized a festival on the banks of the Narayani River from Kartik 18 to Mangsir 2. The Better Chitwan and Chitwan Gen-G groups have been saying that the garbage from the festival, which ended with a huge crowd, was piled on the riverbank and set on fire. They say that the organizers did this to reduce expenses.

Better Chitwan and the Genji group have mentioned that ‘the incident of burning the waste generated after the festival without systematically managing it and piling it up in various places with the aim of reducing costs’. They demand that action be taken to prevent such incidents from recurring as it is not appropriate to do so in a religiously sacred and environmentally sensitive area like the Narayani River.

In the letter submitted to the metropolis, the culprits have been punished and fined, and the organizers have been asked to assess the environmental damage caused to the Narayani River area by the incident and compensate for it. To prevent such a thing from happening in the future, the group has demanded that the metropolis make the organizers commit to waste management and proper disposal in advance when organizing events.

Soon after the incident of setting fire to the waste became public and the Genji group demanded action, the festival organizer, Chitwan District Sports Development Committee, issued a press release stating that this incident was not caused by the committee. In a statement issued by the committee's chairman Rajan Karki on November 21, it was mentioned that an unknown person came at night and set fire to the place where the waste was collected for management.

Karki had also demanded an investigation into the incident and action against the culprits, saying that the committee's reputation was tarnished due to the fire set by someone else. He had said that the committee was ready to coordinate with the administration on this issue. But even after a month since the incident, no progress has been made.