KATHMANDU, March 2, 2016:  The government has been found not paying rent of a building taken on lease for the residence of former President Ram Baran Yadav.A complaint lodged by Arun Prakash Shrestha on behalf of the building owner Rabi Bhakta Bista at the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers (OPMCM) states that the government has neither reached any kind of written agreement for lease with the building owner nor paid rent for the building even though it has already been over three months since former President Yadav started living there.
Shrestha, in the complaint, stated that the government had reached an informal understanding of paying Rs 130,000 monthly as the building rent. The government had decided to provide a residence to Yadav in Bagdol, Lalitpur as a facility to the former president of the country.
The building owner Bista has requested the OPMCM to reach a formal agreement about the rent and pay the rent of the building within the next seven days or vacate the building within three months.
Bista had written a letter to former President Yadav requesting him to ask the government to pay the building rent on January 15. Yadav had then written to the office of the president about it. Then, the office of the president wrote to the OPMCM but no initiatives were taken in this regard, according to the complaint lodged at the OPMCM on January 21.
However, Uttar Kumar Khatri, spokesperson of the OPMCM, said that the government has already initiated necessary process to reach an agreement and pay the rent soon. He said that the process had been delayed as the government was preparing guidelines on facilities to be provided by the government to former head of states.
