Rani Pokhari to be cleaned up

Kathmandu / Dec 17: The Rani Pokhari, located in the heart of the capital city, will undergo a cleanup with the completion of the relocation of the fishes found in the pond.

On Tuesday, the work of relocating the fishes of the Rani Pokhari to Kamal Pokhari had started and now the pond will be cleaned up, said Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC). The pond has never been cleaned up since it was constructed 400 years ago. Currently, a wall construction is taking place around the pond.

The massive earthquake which struck on April 25, 2015 had caused considerable damages to the Bal Gopaleshwor temple at the centre and surrounding infrastructure of the pond.

Arjun Kandel, Director of the World Wide Kandel KN KG JV – the company overseeing the reconstruction of Rani Pokhari – said the mud slush in the pond will be dried in the next two days before starting the cleanup.

Earlier, the Department of Archaeology (DOA) had intervened in the reconstruction of the Bal Gopaleshwor temple citing it failed to meet the reconstruction criteria. DOA has now fully taken over the responsibility of reconstructing the temple.

The pond was constructed in 1727 BS in a time span of two years. The southern section of the pond has a while statue of then then King Pratap Malla with his children riding an elephant. The all four corners of the pond features temples of Hindu God ‘Sohrahate Ganesh’ (Ganesh with 16 arms).

Pratap Malla constructed the ‘Bishnutirtha’ to assuage the grief of his queen after the death of his youngest son ‘Chaktrawartindra’, according to history. When the pond was created, buckets of water from Gosaikunda and various rivers and lakes of the country, were brought to fill up the pond. RSS