Upper house members urge government to address demands of Chure folks

Kathmandu, June 18: National Assembly members have urged the government to address the demands of agitating Chure folks. People from the Chure region have been launching agitation at Maitighar Mandala in the federal capital for the past 27 days, calling for immediate measures to save the Chure region. During the zero hour of today's NA meeting, they drew government's attention to address their demands, saying they are staging sit-in putting forth the demand of drinking water and to save Chure.

NA member Ananda Prasad Dhungana expressed dissatisfaction, saying the government was not found serious to address the demands as Madhes folks are staging sit-in at Maitighar Mandala demanding drinking water and saving Chure from further environmental degradation. "Madhes has been facing scarcity of drinking water due to Chure exploitation. The government should pay attention on it," he underlined. Stating that government employees have been working in minimum salary, another NA member Kiran Babu Shrestha expressed dissatisfaction over no increment in salary.

Similarly, Rukmini Koirala asked the government to provide relief to the families of those killed in landslide in Taplejug while Renu Chand stressed the need of providing incentive allowance to employees of their additional works. Likewise, Bishnu Kumari Sapkota demanded the government to save life of Rubi Khan, who is on a hunger strike for the past 12 days in search of justice to her daughter. Similarly, speaking in the 'special hour' of the meeting of the National Assembly today, lawmakers demanded that the government promptly provided relief assistance to the earthquake-affected people of Jajarkot.

Lawmakers Maya Prasad Sharma and Krishna Bahadur Rokaya said that the quake-affected people in Jajarkot district have not yet received the second tranche of the amount for reconstruction of their damaged houses. They said that the reconstruction of the damaged private homes, government office and school buildings and health posts has been delayed due to this even after seven months since the earthquake struck Jajarkot, Rukum Paschim and Salyan.

According to the lawmakers, a total 87,280 houses have to be reconstructed requiring Rs 43.64 billion. They said the government has not allocated adequate budget for this as well