Dharan Sub-Metropolis withdraws decision of enforcing lockdown after objection

People's representatives in Dharan city withdrew the decision of proposed lockdown after severe objection from the public. The proposed lockdown was announced to begin from Friday.

Students, traders, and daily wage earners protested against the proposed lockdown. Even a demonstration was held by the students and commoners under the leadership of Sagar Chemjong, the President of Free Student Union of Dharan-based Mahendra Multiple Campus, at Dharan Square a couple of days ago. It created pressure on the local government to backtrack from its decision of enforcing lockdown.

''Daily wage earners, labourers and the general public cannot endure repeated lockdown'', said Chemjong, ''We need smart lockdown enforced by the people themselves as it is for their own safety from the pandemic.''

Noted tourism entrepreneur of Dharan city, Basudev Baral, had also requested the local government to rethink the decision of implementing lockdown. ''We need to survive before going to lockdown'', said Baral, ''Business, and developmental activities are bearing the brunt of lockdown.''

Mayor of Dharan Sub-Metropolis, Tilak Rai, shared the information that the decision to enforce lockdown was withdrawn after holding dialogue with local representatives, security persons, and representatives from political and social spheres including media on Thursday evening.

Noted journalist Harsha Subba who also attended the dialogue said political parties like Nepali Congress, CPN-UML, and People's Socialist Party had strongly opposed the random decision of lockdown- without any alternative to the poor and marginalized folks of the Sub-Metropolis.

Dharan Sub-Metropolitan City is one of the first few local governments in Nepal, which had imposed lockdown even before the federal government in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The federal government had imposed months of nationwide lockdown since 24 March 2020. Just a day before the federal governmental announcement, Dharan had announced lockdown to contain coronavirus.