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A total of 159 cattle died due to lumpy skin disease in Rasuwa district.

The lumpy skin disease has been broken out in all five rural municipalities of the district. Among them, Gosainkunda Rural Municipality has seen the biggest loss of cattle.

As of now, lumpy skin disease killed 22 yaks and 41 cows of local species in six wards of Gosainkunda, said Livestock Technical Chief at Syafrubesi in the rural municipality, Suresh Badal.

“Efforts are underway to contain the outbreak of the infectious viral disease. Livestock technician' teams are being mobilized at wards”, he informed.

As many as 800 cattle have been infected with lumpy skin disease in Gosainkunda alone. Badal stressed the need to keep the infected cattle in isolation.

The disease has broken out due to the practice of keeping cattle free in open grazing land in highland areas, he said.

Lumpy skin has also caused a loss to the farmers of Naukunda, Kalika and Uttargaya Rural Municipalities of the district.

Technicians of the concerned rural municipalities in the district informed that as many as 1,500 infected cattle are being treated in other local level areas in the district, except Chhodingmo.

According to Kalika Rural Municipality livestock section chief, Buddhinath Neupane, a technical team has been deployed in the rural municipalities in the southern belt of Rasuwa for disease control.

As the infection has mostly affected oxen used for plough, it has direct bearing on the farmers in paddy plantation.

Information Officer at Veterinary Hospital and Livestock Expert Centre, Nuwakot, Dr Bablu Tharu, a total of 13,000 cows, oxen and yaks were infected with lumpy skin disease in Nuwakot and Rasuwa as of July 16.

"A report has come about the deaths of yaks in the Rasuwa highland due to lumpy skin disease", he said, adding, "Our team is heading to the highland to take stock of the situation there".

Dr Tharu further said that medicines have been sent to the lumpy skin infected areas for immediate relief. As many as 411 livestock died of the contagious disease in Nuwakot, he informed.

The Revenue Investigation Department recovered around one quintal gold from Singamangal on Wednesday.

“Acting on a tip off, we conducted a special operation and recovered 80 to 100 kg gold,” Department Director General Nawaraj Dhungana said, adding, “This may be the largest amount of gold recovered in Nepal so far.”

Police said that the gold, passed undetected through the Customs Office of the Tribhuvan International Airport, arrived in Kathmandu on Tuesday's Cathay Pacific flight.

The gold was brought in Kathmandu by concealing in the brake shoes of motorbikes and scooters.

The officials of the Revenue Investigation Department have arrested three persons on the charge of smuggling the gold.

The arrestees have been identified as owner of Ready Trade Dipip Bhujel, the importer of the gold, customs agent Rajendra Rai and the taxi driver.

The identity of the taxi driver has not been ascertained yet.

It has been said that the team of Revenue Investigation Department arrested the trio while they were taking the gold out of the airport area in a taxi (Sun Ba 2 Cha 2324).

Nepal Police spokesperson Kuber Kadayat confirmed that a huge cache of gold was recovered from Sinamangal on Wednesday.

“This is the first time that such a large amount of gold has been recovered. Investigation into the incident is underway. The value of the gold is around Rs one billion,” he said.

A group of business tycoons may be involved in smuggling the gold, Kadayat said.

The gold that had passed from the Customs Office at 2 pm was recovered after three hours.

The police suspect that this group may have smuggled a large amount of yellow metal earlier also.

During the preliminary investigation, it was found that 160 pieces of gold were brought in Kathmandu.

The TIA Customs Office said that it has no knowledge about the issue.

The seized gold has been sent to the Revenue Investigation Department in Hariharbhawan for weighing.

The gold will be taken to the Taksar Department of the Nepal Rastra Bank to identify the purity of the gold.

Some of the staffers of the Customs Department are also under investigation.

Syangja/Rupandehi: The mention of the word ‘dumping site’ or ‘landfill’ rarely elicits good feelings. No one wants to go near one, much less have a picnic there. But Waling Municipality in Syangja district has turned this general notion about landfill on its head. Yes, the spot where the town dumps its waste is also a picnic park—and a popular one at that. 

The first thing you’ll see as you enter the municipal waste disposal site is the greenery. The area is covered with vegetation, all the grass and trees with paved walkways. There is no whiff of foul smell about. This is explained by the fact that the municipal office only disposes of non-degradable waste here. 

Every individual household in Waling segregate their waste and municipal workers make sure that non-degradable wastes aren’t mixed with the degradable ones when they do their garbage rounds. Failure to segregate means the waste doesn’t get collected, and the concerned household must pay a fine. By simply involving the community in solid waste management, Waling Municipality has managed to keep itself tidy.    

It is also generating revenue through non-degradable waste. From plastic to paper, everything is sold to recycling companies. Once the non-degradable waste is dumped into the site, it’s further separated by the employees.
“Every material has a different price. Among glass bottles, prices differ between the bottles depending on their color. It’s the same for the plastic. Price depends on its quality,” says Dilip Khand, the former mayor of Waling Municipality, who currently manages the solid waste management site.

Annually, the municipality profits around Rs 2.5m to Rs 3m by selling recyclable waste. Multi Layered Plastic (MLP/plastic that’s found on wrappers) doesn’t get sold. But they have found a solution to manage this type of plastic as well. It gets shredded and is used as one of the components for asphalt.

As for the bio-degradable waste, it’s utilized to make vermicompost (biodegradable waste converted into organic manure with the help of earthworms). Waling Product Holding Multipurpose Cooperative is responsible for making and selling vermicompost. Some farming households make their own vermicompost, thus limiting their waste.

Fecal waste from households doesn’t get dumped in the river either. Each household is mandated to have a septic tank. The municipality is responsible for cleaning the tanks, for which each household pays Rs 5,000 per cleaning session. The fecal waste doesn’t go to waste either. It gets separated into solid and liquid forms. While the solid waste is turned into vermicompost, the liquid is turned into drinkable water.

A visitor to Waling will notice how clean the town is, from its neighborhoods to street to river.
“It is the willingness of the locals to keep their surroundings neat that makes Waling so clean,” says Khand.
But this enthusiasm and wisdom didn’t come overnight. At first, some town residents were opposed to the idea of separating their household waste, says Yogmaya Pangeni, coordinator at the Social Development Committee of Waling.
“They fell into line only after the town mayor announced that he would personally visit their homes to pick up and segregate their waste.”  

Besides Waling, the other place that’s doing a great job with waste management is Tilottama Municipality in Rupandehi, Lumbini Province. Like Waling, waste materials are segregated at their source, at the household level. Two garbage trucks are deployed twice a week, once to collect degradable waste and the other to collect non-degradable waste. But the waste is currently collected from only 11 wards (Ward No. 7 to 17) out of the total 17.

While the responsibility of solid waste management in Waling is taken by the municipality, the responsibility of managing waste in Tilottama is undertaken by WASH Cooperative. The non-degradable waste is separated, compressed, and packed for selling the materials to the highest bidder, while the degradable waste is turned into vermicompost.

These models of managing solid waste were initiated by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) as Promoting Green Recovery Project (PGRP/the project has already come to an end) in five different municipalities, among which two of them are Waling and Tilottama. Both the municipalities agree that this couldn’t have been possible without the UNDP’s assistance.

Before initiating the project in Tilottama, Aarju Karki, program officer for PGRP, says that the dumping site was merely a pile of garbage and nothing more. “With the combined effort of WASH Cooperative, Tilottama Municipality, and UNDP, we were able to make this dumping site systematic with added machinery and expertise on waste segregation,” she adds.

The pile of garbage that was dumped before the initiative started is also being segregated separately. “Some contractors take the responsibility of segregating certain areas from the dump and take what they need, while paying a certain amount to the cooperative,” she says. More than half of the waste from the pile has already been managed.

Besides, Tilottama Municipality is actively working on making sure that every household takes the responsibility of segregating their waste. Waste material from a household isn’t collected if not segregated. Also, the locals are encouraged to make their own manure. The municipality has distributed compost bins in every household. Dustbins have also been placed at different stops. The municipality employs two individuals in each ward to make sure no one litters the area.

“The officers are there to make sure that anyone who litter is fined (Rs 500). They also dispose of any non-degradable waste found in the area,” says Shanta Bashyal Bhattarai, one of the consumers in Tilottama.

One of the major forces driving these municipalities into managing and selling waste materials, besides keeping their environment clean, is its financial benefit.

“Solid waste management has become one of our important sources of income,” says Krishna Khand, mayor of Waling Municipality.

Even for Tilottama, their recent monthly revenue was Rs 365,880 from selling scraps. They haven’t yet started making profits, but with the ratio they’re working on, Khem Prasad Gautam, president of WASH Cooperative, says they will be making good profits in the coming years. 

The same initiative could be taken in the Kathmandu Metropolitan City. “The best way to move forward is to have solid waste management sites in each ward, since the waste produced in Kathmandu is more than what we see in Waling,” says Khand, former mayor of Waling Municipality.

It’s an investment that guarantees future returns. “One could do so much with waste materials that’s generated in the Kathmandu Valley,” says Khand. “When I travel around Kathmandu and see the garbage piles, I can’t help but think that it’s money that’s being littered, not waste.”

The local residents of Kakani Rural Municipality in Nuwakot and Dhunibesi Municipality of Dhading have decided not to allow the disposal of garbage collected from the Kathmandu Valley (Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur districts) in the Bancharedanda landfill site until the agreement reached previously is fully implemented.

The dumping of garbage from Kathmandu has been halted from July 17 citing the non-implementation of an agreement reached last year between the Kathmandu Metropolitan City and the locals.

The protest in the form of halting waste disposal would continue until the locals' demands are met, said the Kakani Rural Municipality chair Suman Tamang.

However, the KMC has a different take on the matter. The local people should facilitate in acquiring 3,000 ropanis of land in the area to construct a dumping site as the KMC cannot do it all by itself, said the KMC infrastructure advisor Sunil Lamsal.

Having been dumped in Sisdol for the past 15 years, the waste from the Valley has been disposed of in Bancharedanda from 23 August, 2022.

Following a halt in dumping the waste in Bancharedanda by the local people, a writ petition was filed in the court.

The Supreme Court on Monday issued an interim verdict, directing the local level not to implement their decision of charging fees to the garbage-carrying tipper truck and preventing them from disposing of garbage if they refused to make the payments in fees.

But the locals have halted the disposal of the waste in defiance to the verdict issued by the court.