Kathmandu, May 19
Dharahara was one of the several monuments that fell, unable to withstand the April 25, 2015 quake, which left behind a trail of death and devastation worth trillions of rupees. Immediately after the disaster, the theft of the historic bricks — the building blocks with Shree Juddha 1991 engraved on them — increased. At that time, Onlinekhabar wrote that high government officials as well as members of the public were busy stealing the bricks of archaeological importance.
The report woke up then government and it transferred the debris to the southern parts of Tundikhel. A year after the quake, the historic bricks are at risk, again, thanks to utter apathy on the part of irresponsible government authorities.
For Kathmandu Metropolitan City authorities, these historic materials are nothing but waste, it appears. That’s why it has begun transferring them to its ‘dumping site’.
KMC’s City Police Chief Dhanapati Sapkota says: In the first phase, we are removing debris resulting from the collapse of private houses. In a few days, we will start removing debris brought from Dharahara and Basantapur.
After a week, we will start dumping debris resulting from the collapse of Dharahara and structures at Basantapur, he says, adding: We will not segregate the bricks collected from Dharahara and Basantapur from other debris. If we find objects of archaeological importance, we will hand them over to officials at the Department of Archaeology.
He says they have already decided not to segregate old bricks while dumping debris of archaeological importance resulting from the collapse of heritages. According to Sapkota, it is not possible to segregate these bricks. We have already discussed the matter with the archaeology department. “Now, we will remove this ‘waste’ from Tundikhel.” He did not say who took this ‘decision’ and why.
However, locals of Sundhara and Basantapur are not happy with this ‘decision.’
They have protested against the authorities for deciding to dump Dharahara’s historic bricks with other debris.
These are the building blocks used in the reconstruction of Dharahara after its collapse in the massive quake of 1990 BS (about 83 years ago).
Asked about the preservation of the bricks, a department official says he does not bother about them.
The archaeology department claims these are not archaeological materials, so their preservation is unnecessary. The official goes: These bricks are not materials of archaeological importance. Such bricks have been used in the construction of private buildings of the Ranas (The Ranas ruled Nepal for about a century, before a struggle for democracy consigned their tyranny to history in 1950 AD). We have no plan to preserve them. We plan to sell truckloads of them.
He claims these bricks are widely available everywhere and there’s no need to preserve them.
“Our focus is on the preservation of big monuments,” he claims, adding: I can’t speak much on this topic. But there’s no special programme on the preservation of Dharahara’s bricks.
Most of Dharahara bricks are not usable now, so preserving them is pointless, according to the official.
Bhesh Narayan Dahal, director-general at the department, says they plan to use the usable bricks for the reconstruction of Dharahara.
Dahal, responding to a question about dumping of Dharahara’s bricks, said the (Nepal) Army can clean up Tundikhel.
