Lal Bahadur Thapa of Valchaur of Darma rural municipality has been bearing his education expenses by laboring near the river bank.
He said that he completed his high school by extracting sand from the river bank after reaching Sarada Municipality-1 to get higher education after completing SEE in a local school. Thapa said that he used to work on holidays to meet the education expenses of himself and his siblings.
Lila Thapa, a resident of Sharda Municipality-1, Shrinagar, says that she has been working on the banks of the Sharada River to manage household and personal expenses. She said that they had to work in the sand to make a living as there are no other employment opportunities.
“We remove stones and gravels from the river and extract sand. In five days, we are able to extract a tractor full of sand and sell it for Rs 2,000. Five hundred rupees has to be paid as taxes, the rest is our income,’ said, Thapa.
Similarly, Babita Bohara, a resident of Kapurkot rural municipality -5, has been extracting sand from the bank of the Sarada River for the past two years. She says since she has no means of employment, she is forced to come to the river at 7 in the morning, collect sand all day and return only at 5 in the evening.
Bimala Badi of Sarada Municipality-1, Shantinagar has complained that there is a problem when the employment oriented programs run by the central, provincial and local levels as they do not reach the target group. He said that the government has spent millions of rupees annually to generate employment at the local level but the poor families are still unable to get employment.
Chief of Sarada Municipality Suresh Adhikari said that the Prime Minister’s and Chief Minister’s Employment Program has been implemented to provide employment to poor families.
He said that the program is being implemented in the current fiscal year to provide employment to about 500 people within the municipality.
According to the Prime Minister’s Employment Program, about 2,000 people will be employed in the district this year.