Nepali Congress (NC) President Sher Bahadur Deuba has said that NC has taken the government’s policy into serious consideration that allegedly allows extraction and export of river products.
In a press statement issued here today, leader Deuba has hit out at the budget allocation for the new fiscal year 2021/22 that allegedly promotes quarrying of aggravates from the Chure area. The former Prime Minister maintained that excessive and wanton excavation of soil, sand, stones among others had led to drying up of the water sources and had resulted in soil erosion, overall adversely impacting the environment.
Deuba recalled that NC’s then-President Sushil Koirala-led government had considered various measures to protect and promote the Chure area such as the formation of President Chure-Terai Conservation Committee.
The Committee, according to the statement, had banned extraction and sales and export of aggregates from this area stretching across 36 districts from Ilam in the eastern part of the country to Kanchanpur in the west. Chure area constitutes 12.78 per cent of the total area of the country.
Deuba further asserted that encouraging extracting of aggravates in the Chure area was not only a minor mistake but a crime against nature and it would eventually lead to desertification of Terai-Madhesh.
He also denounced the incumbent government’s announcement in the budget speech on May 29 that the trade deficit would be reduced by exporting sand, soil, rock and other aggregates from the Chure area. Deuba has compared the very policy with ‘burning down one’s house to trade in ashes.’
The NC has concluded that such a move was not acceptable for it would leave a negative impact on the Terai-Madhesh and the country at large for a long time.
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