Dharan Sub-Metropolitan City using two letterheads; Has ‘Koshi Province’ been removed?

Sunsari: Dharan Sub-Metropolitan City has been found using two letterheads. The sub-metropolitan has been found using two letterheads with different province names. Letterheads of the sub-metropolitan have been issued with Koshi Province and Province 1.

A letter that was issued on Wednesday, had Province 1 printed on the letterhead. The name of the province was fixed as Koshi Province on 17^th Falgun, 2079. The letter having invoice number 8077, which was issued by the Head of Youth and Sports, Ganesh Prasad Khatiwada, was found to have Province 1 printed on it. It was a holiday-related letter.

But, in another letter, we can see Koshi printed on the letterhead. It was just one month ago that, Khatiwada issued a holiday-related letter, with invoice number 7929 that shows Koshi mentioned on the letterhead.

Nepal Views contacted Administrative Officer Matrika Bhattarai regarding the issue. Bhattarai said, ‘Koshi Province has not been removed from the letterhead. The official decision has not been made regarding the change of province in the letter. I am also not aware of having any direction from the Mayor regarding such a change. No official decisions have been made against it.’

Likewise, Khatiwada also said that the details of the province on the letterhead hadn’t been changed. He said, ‘We had been correcting the old printed letterheads and using it. The letterhead of today’s letter was not corrected. But, there is no decision regarding the change of the letterhead.’

He accepted the technical error in the issuance of the letter. Khatiwada said, ‘We were using the letterhead by correcting. We don’t have the authority of using the letterhead mentioning Province 1. We have to respect the decision of the government. The demonstration is going on. We are peculiar regarding such matters, but the error occurred. No such decision regarding the change in letterhead has been made. We forgot to correct the letterhead.’

Previously, the identitarian demonstrators had met with Mayor Harkaraj Rai, to correct the name of the province in the official documents. But, Mayor Rai has not acted upon the request.

Another letter issued from the education department also used the letterhead mentioning Province 1, which was issued today. Some identitarian protestors even shared photos of the letter on social media expressing their happiness regarding the change. They have been claiming Province 1 as a better name for the province rather than Koshi Province.

Nepal version of the article