Of the 127 government offices in Kaski that were damaged during the protests, some have been repaired and started services from their old buildings, some have started services from the surviving buildings and rooms, and some have started services from waiting rooms. Some offices are preparing to operate services by renting space.
What you should know
After the building was destroyed in the protest on Bhadhai 24, the Land Revenue Office, Kaski, has converted the service recipient waiting room into a temporary office. With the help of accountants and land traders, the Land Revenue Office started providing services from Asoj 30 by managing the temporary office and goods.
The Department of Land Management and Records has not been able to allocate an immediate budget for the reconstruction of the office. Land Revenue Officer Shobhakhar Pokharel said that they do not have sufficient infrastructure to fully start the service, but the pressure of service recipients has increased due to the increase.
According to him, the office has to operate services from two rooms. ‘We currently have two rooms.’ He said, ‘We live in one of the rooms.’ ‘We are dividing the other into two parts and doing registration work in two places.’
He said that out of at least 22 computers required to fully start the registration work, only 10 are available.’ He said that the land seizure, release and essential work for registration have been started since Asoj 30. He said that there is a plan to start the work of share distribution and transfer from Sunday. He said that currently, the capacity is to serve 150 service recipients daily. Pokharel urged people to come to the service only if they have to go abroad, have been abroad for a long time and are currently returning after completing work, need to complete banking procedures or are required to go abroad. He said that about 80 percent of the documents and records in the office were burned.
107 government offices in Kaski were damaged during the protest on Bhadra 24. The District Administration Office, Kaski, has collected details of 329 vehicles, including 219 two-wheelers and 110 four-wheelers.
Assistant Chief District Officer Shiva Lamsal said that the damage to government property due to the protests in Kaski was estimated at Rs 2.24 billion. ‘This is the information provided by all the offices. If a yellow sticker is currently pasted on an office building, it is not included. If that is added later, the damage will increase,’ he said.
The administration building destroyed by the arson has been cleaned and painted. Lamsal said that no services provided by the administration, including citizenship, national identity cards, and cases, have been stopped. 'We have purchased some of the items we need, some donors have helped,' he said, 'all other work was underway. We have also started the work on the national identity card.' All records including citizenship, passports, national identity cards, organizations, minor identity cards, cases, and weapons at the District Administration Office, Kaski, have been destroyed in the arson.
During the Gen-G movement, only one committee hall of the Gandaki Provincial Assembly complex is intact. The entire Provincial Assembly Secretariat is currently operating from the hall of the Provincial Affairs and Law Committee. The Provincial Assembly Secretary and Secretariat staff are working regularly in that hall. The Speaker and Deputy Speaker do not have offices. There is no decision on where the Provincial Assembly meeting will be held, when it will be held, or how the secretariat will be run.
Secretariat Information Officer Shashidhar Subedi said that there is no work to search for another place at the moment. ‘The Secretary has informed about the damage in the meetings. The assembly and committee meetings have not been held. Although there was talk of holding the meeting in the ministry hall, there has been no talk of moving the secretariat to another new place,’ he said.
Pokhara Metropolitan City’s building in New Road was damaged during the agitation. The metropolis had started services from the Pokhara Assembly Hall, Fire Department Building and various department buildings from Asoj 1. With the aim of integrating all services, the metropolis is preparing to rent two floors of the building of Rastriya Banijya Bank in Pokhara-9 Nayabazar. For this, technical evaluation work is being done for the operation of integrated services after discussing the rental rate with the bank, said Metropolitan City Information Officer Krishna Prasad Tiwari. ‘The branches and departments that are already outside will also be brought there.’ We are conducting technical and financial evaluations to see how to provide services there and how much it will cost. After that, we will make an agreement and move in,’ he said.
The city has not yet decided how much monthly rent the city will pay to the bank. The bank had initially proposed Rs 49 per square foot. After requesting a reduction, the bank is ready to pay around Rs 40 per square foot. He informed that 20,000 square feet are being rented on two floors. If the agreement is for Rs 40 per square foot, the city will have to pay Rs 800,000 per month to the bank. The city has requested the bank to reduce it even further from Rs 40. If the bank agrees to Rs 35 per square foot by the time of the agreement, the city will have to pay Rs 700,000 per month.
Even before the agitation, the city has been paying around Rs 300,000 per month for the rent of the Infrastructure Development Division, the Economic Development Division and other structures. Moving all the branches to the building currently being rented will cost the Metropolitan City an additional financial burden of Rs 400,000 to 500,000.
The Metropolitan City has planned to build an administrative building on the land of the Pokhara Valley City Development Committee in Dyside, Pokhara. The DPR construction work is underway as per the plan to build the building on an area of about 45 ropanis. Since constructing temporary structures in other places would be expensive and time-consuming, the Metropolitan City is planning to rent two floors of the bank to use until the building is constructed there.
Some provincial government ministries and offices in Pokhara have started working from their old places after cleaning and painting. The ward offices of Pokhara Metropolitan City, which were damaged by arson and vandalism, have also started cleaning and providing essential services with the active participation of locals.
