Current Affairs

Less than two months into his five-year tenure, Dharan Sub Metropolitan City’s Mayor Harka Raj Rai, popularly known as Harka Sampang Rai, seems very busy, cleaning streets, taking measures to confine monkeys to forests, and joining hands with city-dwellers to lay drinking water pipes.

In a city affected by rampant drug abuse problem among youth, Rai is also spearheading an awareness-raising initiative aimed at keeping local youth away from substances. As if that was not enough, Rai has been urging road-users to strictly follow traffic rules.

Leading a series of reform measures in the city - nestled in the shadows of green hills in eastern Nepal’s Province-1 - Rai stunned many people recently when he proposed to forgo his luxury car facility altogether, sell his office Scorpio worth Rs 5.1 million and instead buy a roller machine to fix Dharan’s dilapidated core city streets.  

Motorcycle-riding mayor

With such noble steps, the motorcycle-driving mayor is winning accolades from many voters within his constituency and from across the country.

This past weekend, the 39-year-old was seen working together with a group of city-dwellers at a reservoir site at Pakuwa River. There, work is in progress to divert water to Dharan 11 and 17, where residents have been facing water shortages for years.

Video source: Ramesh Dawadi/Facebook

Dharan, home to over 1.7 million people, has been facing a drinking water crisis for years, and the new mayor has promised to do everything he can to make sure that Dharan-dwellers have enough water to drink. Besides water sources like the Pakuwa river and Khardu Khola, Rai has pledged to look into the possibility of diverting water from the mighty Koshi river that flows down into India from the western part of Dharan.

A fiercely independent candidate with no political affiliation or background, Rai’s father was a British Gurkha soldier. Before becoming a social reform campaigner – with his Facebook page ‘Harka Sampang A Revolution’ – Rai worked as an English teacher while his wife runs a small neighbourhood grocery.

But his victory as mayor of Dharan following May local elections – with stick as an election symbol just like another independent candidate Balen Shah’s in Kathmandu - changed all that. He contested the election promising to ensure good governance, build basic infrastructure such as roads, drinking water facilities, schools and hospitals.

Reactions

After some work at the Pakuwa water intake site last Saturday, Rai wrote on his Facebook page: “After Pakuwa, now we will build three water intakes at Khardu.”

Reacting to that, one Rakesh Lamichhane wrote below his post: “If you can ensure smooth water supply in Dharan in five years’ time that will be a huge feat and people will always remember you.” Himal Limbu wrote: “Long ago, when Man Mohan Adhikari was the prime minister, we heard about ‘let’s build our own villages’. Now you are actually doing it.”

But Harka Raj Rai has some critics too, who claim, the Dharan mayor is currently busy stealing the limelight by making populist moves, one after another. Overall, Dharan-watchers say, it’s too early to judge as he was another five years to prove his mettle and his worth as a mayor.  

Or, they say, he may disappoint the voters as did the mayors who were elected on political party tickets.