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Is Rishi Dhamala in trouble?

Bhrikuti Mandap is in the news again. For decades, the folks at the Social Welfare Council have been making money by leasing out the space inside Bhrikuti Mandap for peanuts. But the recent news report has also shown that many politically-affiliated organizations and some byaparis have been operating their businesses without paying any rent at all for years.

Rishi Dhamala runs his Reporters Club, and his so-called non-profit has not paid rent since COVID, with dues now totaling Rs 77 lakhs. Dhamala recently ran for election and lost miserably, garnering only a few hundred votes. I would have loved to see him at our parliament but the 'blue wave' across the country did not see the chatpatey-making, digging here and there and furniture-making skills of our great so-called journalist.

It is not only Dhamala but many shop owners and even UML-affiliated student organization had failed to pay the rent for years and got away with it because they had political protection. Things are changing now and we will have to see if Dhamala can come up with the rental dues in a week or the Reporters Club will have to find a new space somewhere in the city.

And what were our government officials doing all these years? I guess you must have some kind of rental agreement to lease the space from any landlord, be it private or the government. There must have been a clause for eviction if the rent is not paid within a certain time frame. We should also hold these sarkari karmarcharis accountable for letting freeloaders get the space and not pay their rent for years.

My question is, why do our government bodies need to rent out their space to private business owners or some social organizations in the first place? If they really need the funds to manage their budget, then why not go for a more transparent current market rate and let it be a free bidding process for all?

Even the UML-affiliated student union had been using the space for free for years, and this kind of stuff happens everywhere in every district and ward across the country. We have had politically-affiliated folks use public land for free and make money from it for decades. This will finally stop with the new government in town, and we are happy about it.

And the biggest defaulter is a public library inside Bhrikuti Mandap. More than Rs 2 Karod in rental dues. We need to find out who runs the library and if the members involved have been misusing the donations to run the library or not. If these folks are honest, then we all need to pitch in and fund a public library or two in the valley or even help them to pay the rental dues.

Let us hope that our new government will open a public library in every ward in the country. The government has unused land in every ward in this country. It doesn't take much space. I think every ward in this country has hundreds or even thousands of folks overseas as semi-skilled workers, students or professionals. They can pitch in a few dollars and folks at home can pitch in a few Rupees so that we will promote reading and have a place for our young ones to hang out, study and read more fiction and other books instead of only school textbooks.

We have had hundreds of thousands of folks who have been milking the system and misusing government property for decades. If we can build public libraries in every ward then in a decade or two, we might produce hundreds of creative folks who could one day win a Nobel Prize, Grammys and Oscars and have their creative and even scientific works enjoyed by billions of people around the world.
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