Sunsari Officials Hiding Info to Cover Up Failures
Somnath Bastola
Itahari, September 3:
After failing to ensure effective rescue and relief operation in flood affected areas in Sunsari, responsible government officials have been found disseminating wrong information to the media to cover up their failures. Among the officials who were found disseminating wrong information to cover up their flaws include CDO Durga Bhandari, who is also coordinator of the district natural calamity rescue and relief management committee, member secretary of the committee and LDO Guru Subedi and assistant CDO Chiranjibi Adhikari.
President of the Federation of Nepali Journalists' Sunsari chapter Rajesh Bidrohi asked, "What should the newspapers print when the sources -- the responsible high officials in the administration -- have been providing distorted or cooked up information?" He said CDO Bhandari earlier said the reconstruction of Spur No 12.10 and 12.90, which were breached on August 18, was going on fast pace. "But when journalists reached the site, there was no reconstruction work at all," said joint secretary of the FNJ Sunsari chapter Ananda Koirala.
Journalist Krishna Bhattarai said, "LDO Subedi had said that a decision was made to resettle the displaced people at Bhokraha and Simariya, but there was no such decision taken at any level of the administration." CDO Bhandari has also been not providing factual information on the casualty of the diseases in the relief camps. "Till this morning, he was claiming that only one woman was died in the camp, that too in flood. It was only after SP Yadav Raj Khanal disclosed that we came to know that seven persons have died of diseases in the camp."
CDO Bhandari had said that the displaced people in Sunsari's Haripur area were being provided with appropriate treatment and relief assistance, but the victims complained that they had received no medical attention. A team of health personnel of the Nepal Army's eastern regional divisional headquarters in Itahari arrived here only on Tuesday. The sick were were not getting even the jeevanjal and cetamol.
CDO Bhandari told this daily, "We presumed that the Saptari administration was handling the crisis on the other side. But, it did not. We plan to run the health services and relief operation in Haripur area within a day or two." CDO Bhandari and LDO Subedi, instead accused the media of reporting baseless news.
Source: The Himalayan Times, 3 September 2008
After failing to ensure effective rescue and relief operation in flood affected areas in Sunsari, responsible government officials have been found disseminating wrong information to the media to cover up their failures. Among the officials who were found disseminating wrong information to cover up their flaws include CDO Durga Bhandari, who is also coordinator of the district natural calamity rescue and relief management committee, member secretary of the committee and LDO Guru Subedi and assistant CDO Chiranjibi Adhikari.
President of the Federation of Nepali Journalists' Sunsari chapter Rajesh Bidrohi asked, "What should the newspapers print when the sources -- the responsible high officials in the administration -- have been providing distorted or cooked up information?" He said CDO Bhandari earlier said the reconstruction of Spur No 12.10 and 12.90, which were breached on August 18, was going on fast pace. "But when journalists reached the site, there was no reconstruction work at all," said joint secretary of the FNJ Sunsari chapter Ananda Koirala.
Journalist Krishna Bhattarai said, "LDO Subedi had said that a decision was made to resettle the displaced people at Bhokraha and Simariya, but there was no such decision taken at any level of the administration." CDO Bhandari has also been not providing factual information on the casualty of the diseases in the relief camps. "Till this morning, he was claiming that only one woman was died in the camp, that too in flood. It was only after SP Yadav Raj Khanal disclosed that we came to know that seven persons have died of diseases in the camp."
CDO Bhandari had said that the displaced people in Sunsari's Haripur area were being provided with appropriate treatment and relief assistance, but the victims complained that they had received no medical attention. A team of health personnel of the Nepal Army's eastern regional divisional headquarters in Itahari arrived here only on Tuesday. The sick were were not getting even the jeevanjal and cetamol.
CDO Bhandari told this daily, "We presumed that the Saptari administration was handling the crisis on the other side. But, it did not. We plan to run the health services and relief operation in Haripur area within a day or two." CDO Bhandari and LDO Subedi, instead accused the media of reporting baseless news.
Source: The Himalayan Times, 3 September 2008
