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A day after taking a decision to withdraw the support extended to the government, Sudurpaschim Province Chief Minister Kamal Bahadur Shah has assigned the responsibility to two ministers participating in the provincial government from the Nagarik Unmukti Party.

According to the Chief Minister's Secretariat, Chief Minister Shah has appointed Laxman Kishor Chaudhary as the Minister for Social Development and Khushiram Dagaura Tharu as the Minister for Industry, Tourism, Forests and Environment.

Earlier, both of them were appointed as ministers without portfolio.

Damodar Pandit, spokesperson of the party, informed that the meeting of the founding members of the party held in Tikapur on Wednesday decided to support the coalition in the central government and withdraw the support to the province government.

Along with this, Nagarik Unmukti Party will have four ministers and one state minister in the Sudurpaschim government.

Chief Minister Kamal Bahadur Shah on Monday appointed Laxman Kishor Chaudhary of Nagarik Unmukti Party as the minister without portfolio.

Province Chief Devraj Joshi administered the oath of office and secrecy to Chaudhary amidst a function.

Among the seven Province Assembly members, five have become the ministers—four ministers and one state minister—in the Sudurpaschim Province.

The Chief Minister on Friday appointed the party's Parliamentary Party leader as Minister for Minister for Economic Affairs, Khusram Chaudhary as Minister without portfolio and Indira Giri as State Minister for Land Management, Agriculture and Cooperatives.

Earlier, Rameshwor Chaudhary was appointed as the Minister for Land Management, Agriculture and Cooperatives.

Apart from Minister for Economic Affairs Shivaraj Bhatta, seven have become ministers from Kailali alone in the Sudurpaschim Province.

Bhatta is a Province Assembly member of Nepali Congress from Baitadi.

A place surrounded by forests, caves and a natural lake that never dries up, Pattal Bhubaneswar in Sudurpaschim province has many notable features. 

Although the site, located in Surnaya Rural Municipality-2, Baitadi, has a great tourism potential, not many visitors come here due to the lack of promotion. The main attraction of Pattal Bhubaneshwar is its main cave which is said to be the deepest in South Asia. Several teams have tried and failed to measure the length and depth of the cave. 

In 2015, a team led by French cave expert Maurice Dussin studied up to 800 meters of the cave. The team couldn’t go beyond that point. After that, a geological team of Tribhuvan University also studied the cave. The team concluded that since the topography of the area is rocky, there won’t be any damage due to natural calamities like earthquakes. Yet another team of foreign experts tried to measure the length of this cave last month. The team led by UK cave expert Peter Alisson also failed to measure the entire length of the cave. The team has said the caving experience in Pattal Bhubaneshwar was different from other caves in the world. “This cave is deeper than the ones in Meghalaya, India, and Thailand. Commercial caving is possible in these two caves, but we couldn't go much deeper in this cave. It’s among the deepest in the world,” Alisson added.

Alisson suggested local authorities to promote these caves in the global arena so that this area can benefit from tourism. 

Kailash Chand, a member of the exploration team, said he saw an interesting structure resembling an elephant trunk and several statues and a Shivalinga. “The route narrows down as we go deeper. The cave floor is moist. We can see several structures as well as inscriptions,” he added. 

The team explored the cave for nearly eight hours on the first day and 12 hours on the second day. The local people are planning to develop the cave into an adventure tourism destination.
“The study has concluded that this area holds potential for tourism development. We need to build necessary infrastructures to welcome tourists,” Arun Bista, president of Pattal Bhubaneshwar Religious Forest Committee, said. “We need to build accommodation and also launch effective publicity campaigns.”

Pattal Bhubaneswar Cave, which is only a 20-minute walk from Dasharath Chand Highway, also holds special religious significance. According to Hindu scriptures, goddess Sati Devi’s foot fell at this place when Lord Shiva was roaming the world with her dead body. There is also a temple dedicated to Lord Shiva. The area wears a festive look during festivals like Mahashivaratri. But the temple is in a dilapidated state now. 

“We need to renovate the temple and build accommodations for tourists,” Keshav Raj Bhatta, a local of the area, said. 

Rural municipality chairperson Amar Bahadur Kunwar said they were preparing a master plan for the development of Pattal Bhubaneshwar area. “We are working in coordination with the provincial and federal governments,” he added.

The cases of COVID-19 have again emerged in the Sudurpaschim Province. The infection rate was nil until sometime ago and last week, but eight cases have been detected this week.

Ganesh Saud, an Auxiliary Health Worker stationed at the Health Desk in Gauriphanta along the Nepal-India border, said that symptoms were observed in India-returnees. Through antigen tests, eight cases have been identified lately.

Four samples of the infected have been already sent to Kathmandu through the province-based lab to find out the disease variant.

Those showing symptoms of COVID-19 at the border have been advised to observe home- isolation and those having severe symptoms are being advised to visit hospitals.

According to Saud, the World Health Organization recently warned against the detection of a new variant of the disease. 

According to the provincial Health Emergency Operation Centre, Health Directorate, three COVID-19 cases have been traced in the past three days among the people returned to Nepal from Gauriphanta and Gaddachauki checkpoints in the province.

The Sudurpaschim Province government has decided to provide Rs 10 million for the earthquake victims of Karnali Province.

An emergency meeting of the province government held on Saturday made the decision to this effect.

Speaking at a press conference after the Cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Kamal Bahadur Shahi said that the province government has decided to provide Rs 10 million to the earthquake victims of Karnali.

Similarly, he said the meeting has also decided to send 20 health workers to the quake affected areas.

The Chief Minister was of the opinion that a team with medicines, health equipment and other relief materials will head towards the affected areas today itself.

The provincial government also expressed condolences to bereaved families and wished for the speedy recovery of the injured.

The Sudurpaschim Province is at high risk of dengue spread, according to the data from the Sudurpaschim Province Health Directorate.

The focal person at the Directorate, Hemraj Joshi, said that the number of dengue patients is increasing day by day.

The province recorded a total of 353 dengue patients in August alone.

"The number of dengue patients has shot up in the month of August," he added.

In the past eight months, the province recorded 680 cases of dengue infection.

As per the data, Kailali district has the highest number of dengue patients while Baitadi has the least number of the infection. During the period, Kailali witnessed 232 patients.

Fortunately, there has not been recorded even a single death caused due to dengue this year.

Last year, the province had recorded four dengue-related deaths.

Lumpy skin disease is taking a heavy toll on the cattle in the districts of Sudurpaschim Province. So far, almost 26,000 livestock died of the lumpy skin disease, the officials said. 

The disease has spread in all nine districts of the province, affecting around 634,800 animals.

Chief of Veterinary Hospital and Livestock Service Expert Centre, Kailali, Dr Hemraj Awasthi, said that the outbreak of the disease has panicked the local farmers with the largest number of livestock fatalities in Baitadi and largest number of infections in Kailali district. Dr Awasthi said that more than 11,000 animals died of this disease in Baitadi district.

Likewise, Kanchanpur district recorded the least number of fatalities among the nine districts in the province.

However, just 630 livestock received vaccines against this disease as per the information provided to the Department of Livestock Service from the Livestock Development Directorate.

"This year's infection in the hilly districts is deadlier," according to Dr Awasthi.

The livestock technicians have suggested the farmers keep the infected cattle isolated. It is said that the disease broke out due to the practice of keeping cattle free in open grazing land in highland areas.

Sudurpaschim Province Government has failed to utilize Rs 11bn of the budget allocated for the fiscal year 2022/23.

Out of the total allocation of Rs 35bn in 2022/23, the provincial government could spend only Rs 24bn by mid-July 2023. The provincial government has stated that Rs 7bn from the capital budget and Rs 4bn from the recurrent budget remained unutilized in the previous fiscal year, which concluded in mid-July.

According to Basudev Joshi, chief of Sudurpashchim Treasury Controller Office, only Rs 15bn out of the allocated Rs 22.84bn for the capital budget was expended. Similarly, Rs 8bn out of the allocated Rs 12.3bn for recurrent expenditure was utilized during the review year.

“Despite having numerous development plans, the province government lacked sufficient personnel to execute them,” Joshi explained. “This hindered the spending process.”

Joshi further mentioned that the majority of the unspent budget consisted of equalization grants and conditional grants received from the federal government.

The provincial government has been allocating budgets for projects even smaller than those prepared by local units. Under the Ministry of Physical Planning alone, there were 6,200 projects with budgets ranging from Rs 300,000 to Rs 50m.

“The budgets are allocated with the intention of favoring party cadres and individuals close to influential figures. There is a practice of implementing projects through consumer committees led by party cadres to pocket commissions,” said Rajendra Singh Rawal, the parliamentary party leader of CPN-UML in the provincial assembly. “Under such circumstances, how can the budget be fully spent this year?”

In terms of capital expenditure, the Ministry of Industry, Tourism, Forest, and Environment achieved the highest spending progress at 79 percent, while the Office of the Chief Minister and Council of Ministers attained the lowest progress at 49 percent.

Similarly, the spending progress of the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure stood at 73 percent, the Ministry of Social Development at 71 percent, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Planning at 65 percent, the Ministry of Land Management, Agriculture and Cooperatives at 65 percent, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Law at 56 percent.

This is the second term of the Sudurpaschim Province Government. The average budget spending has remained at 60-65 percent over the past five years. In previous years, the budget spending stood at 59 percent in 2018/19, 62 percent in 2019/20, 64 percent in 2020/21, and 66 percent in 2021/22.

“In the previous fiscal year, budgets were allocated for fragmented projects, and we also faced a shortage of technical staff,” Naresh Bahadur Shahi, Minister of Economic Affairs of Sudurpaschim Province, stated. “Now, we have discontinued fragmented programs. These programs will be implemented by local units. We expect an improvement in spending in the current fiscal year.”

Approximately one-fourth of the budget for 2022/23, amounting to Rs 9bn, was spent in the last month of the fiscal year alone i.e. from mid-June to mid-July.