Rotten old bullets in Ghatgaddi

In the seven wards of Kalimati, there are about 3,000 hectares of forest with Sal, Saaj and other trees. It has 62 community forests. In 9 community forests of Ward No. 4, 5, 6 and 7, more than 10,000 balls have been made and ghatgaddi, while hundreds of trees swept away by road digging and landslides during the rainy season are in a state of collapse.

More than 10,000-year-old Golia wood has been placed in various community forests. Purushottam Bhattarai, President of the Community Forest Federation Salyan, said that there was a lack of agreement between the community forest and the contractor at two locations in Ward No. 5, and the process was complicated in others, and the wood of Sal and Saj was wasted due to rotting. He said that till now, only 4/5 thousand cufts which have been kept in the National Forest through tenders have been sold by the relevant agencies.

"After the government made a law against cutting sal trees and selling fallen trees arbitrarily, and strict action was taken against those who sold them, even the community forests did not dare to sell fallen sal trees and sap trees," he said. Chandra Bahadur Gaha, Chairman of Triveni Community Forest, said that 5,500 cubic feet of sal, saj, and asna, which are lying in the forest, are rotting because they cannot be sold due to various obstacles.

He said that although the process of selling the wood stored in Ghatgaddi is moving forward, it has not been completed. In the past, it could be heard from time to time that Dhalapada and green saplings were cut down and stolen from some community forests within the municipality. It has not been stolen recently. According to him, the money sold by the community forest is being spent on the development of the community forest.

Tekraj Pulami, who is a consumer of the local community forest and is also the chairman of ward 6, said that although there is plenty of sal and sapwood in the community forest, due to legal difficulties, the consumers could not get the wood easily even when building houses. He informed that even though there is a lot of forest nearby, trees cannot be cut, and for the cutting of fallen trees, the division forest office, community forest, etc., have to go to different agencies, because it is not only complicated, but the cost is the same, so it is better to buy instead of getting involved in various types of entanglement. .

The Chairman of Kalimati Rural Municipality, Dan Bahadur Khatri, said that even though the municipality tried to advance the process of selling the wood that had rotted and wasted, the revenue would be collected for the local level and the federal government. He said that he stopped caring when the process taken by the municipality could not move forward. Concrete buildings are being built in different places of the municipality along with the development of settlements. If the trees and wood that were rotting and wasting in the local community forest were sold, the locals would have been greatly relieved. All those who were building houses were not forced to bring expensive windows from Dang,'' he said.

Jitendra Mahat, Head of Division Forest Office, Salyan, said that since few years ago, the process of extracting sal wood from community forest and selling it is complex and difficult. He said that the timber kept by the two community forests of Kalimati in Ghatgaddi has been rotting for a few years due to the dispute between the community forest and the contractor. There is no dispute about the wood collected by other community forests. Despite advancing the sales process, it has not been completed. He said that only last year, some timber from the National Forest was sold through contract.

'For the export and sale of wood outside, first of all, local assembly should be done. After passing the meeting, the work of cutting and cutting will be done, tender should be done. After that, orders should be taken from the union through the province. Meanwhile, a year passes. Normal disputes are stopped in the process. Because of that, the community forests have not been able to advance the process of sale of sal wood," he said.