Smuggling of river-based resources rampant

Parasi / December 27: Smuggling of the river-based resources is on the rise in different rivers of Nawalparasi district lately due to lack of proper monitoring mechanism of the government bodies.

Activities of smugglers have gone up as the contract bidding was not made in regard to the river-based resources from the District Development Committee (DDC), Chitwan.

The smugglers have excavated the sands, pebbles and rocks from the bank overnight while the price of the sand is increased by two-fold.

However, Rijban Ansari, an official at the DDC Revenue Branch, said that the process of issuing the contract bidding for the river-based resources was not proceeded due to lack of exact delineation of the Chure region in the district and environmental impact assessment.

Locals said that as high as 30 tractors of river-based resources are being smuggled from Turiyakhola in Shukrauli VDC and Tonawakhola in Hakui VDC.

Likewise, smuggling of the goods from Panbhar, Jharai, Arunkhola, Baulahakhola and others is intense. The DDC is also losing a huge amount of revenue amount for its failure to issue the contract bid.

However, the locals residing on the banks of rivers claimed that the smuggling is going in cahoots with some DDC officials and police officials. RSS