The Royal Bhutan Police (RBP) and the communities in Gelephu are pioneering an initiative that promises to set a new standard for the entire country: making Gelephu a drug- and crime-free city. As the scourge of drug abuse and related crimes spreads across Bhutan, such efforts are needed more than ever in every part of the nation.

On July 18, around 200 community members, including youth, gathered to meet the police. During this meeting, the Chief of Police briefed them on the RBP’s immediate initiatives targeted at the youth. He said that rehabilitation programmes for drug users and dependents were crucial interventions in the fight against drug abuse. However, the success of these initiatives hinges on overcoming significant challenges faced by our rehabilitation centres: lack of expertise and inadequate funding.

For any community-based initiative to succeed, especially one as ambitious as making a city drug-and crime-free, a strong foundation is essential. Our current rehabilitation centres are severely under-resourced, both in terms of financial support and professional expertise. To create lasting change, we must address these deficiencies head-on.

One of the most pressing issues is the shortage of trained professionals who can effectively run rehabilitation programmes. Skilled counsellors, psychologists, and social workers are indispensable in helping individuals overcome addiction. Without their expertise, rehabilitation efforts may fall short, leaving many individuals without the support they need to reclaim their lives.

Investing in the training and development of professionals should be a priority. The government, along with non-governmental organisations and international partners, must collaborate to provide comprehensive training programmes. This will ensure that our rehabilitation centres are staffed with qualified personnel capable of delivering high-quality care and support.

Financial constraint is another significant hurdle. Effective rehabilitation programmes require substantial investment—not only in human resources but also in facilities, equipment, and ongoing operational costs. The current funding levels are insufficient to meet these demands, and without adequate financial support, the sustainability of these programs is at risk.

The government should consider increasing budget allocations for rehabilitation services. Additionally, partnerships with private sector entities and international donors can provide much-needed financial backing. Fundraising campaigns and community support initiatives can also play a role in generating resources.

For the rehabilitation programmes to be effective, they must be supported by strong infrastructure. This includes well-equipped centres with the capacity to accommodate and treat individuals in need. Modern facilities, combined with a supportive and therapeutic environment, can significantly enhance the recovery process.

Community-led support groups and volunteer programmes can provide additional layers of support to those undergoing treatment.

The initiative in Gelephu is a commendable step towards addressing the twin issues of drug abuse and crime. However, its success will serve as a benchmark for other regions only if we collectively address the challenges at hand. Strong leadership, adequate funding, and professional expertise are the cornerstones of this effort.

Trade deficit widens to Nu 31.95 billion as of June this year

Thukten Zangpo

The country’s import bill, including electricity, shot up by 12 percent to Nu 56.34 billion in the first six months (January to June) of this year compared to the same period last year, according to the Bhutan Trade Statistics released recently.

Last year, the country imported Nu 50.25 billion worth of goods in the first six months.

Despite the increase in the import figure, the trade deficit widened negligibly by Nu 618 million to Nu 31.95 billion as of June this year.

This was mainly because of an increase in exports by 29 percent amounting to Nu 24.4 billion in the first six months, up from Nu 18.92 billion during the same period last year.

Trade deficit occurs when the value of imports exceeds the value of export.

Import from India accounted for 88 percent or Nu 49.83 billion while exports to India was recorded at Nu 17.29 billion as of June this year.

At the same time, the import bill from other countries was Nu 6.51 billion against exports of Nu 7.11 billion.

Bhutan’s import of electricity significantly increased during the first six months, widening the trade deficit in the second quarter.

Bhutan usually imports electricity during the lean season from December to March but this year, electricity was imported until May.

This was mainly attributed to poor hydrology.In substantial terms, the country imported Nu 5.12 billion worth of electricity in the first five months this year, compared to Nu 1.88 billion during the same period last year.

Had it not been for the increased electricity import, the country’s trade deficit would be reduced to Nu 26.83 billion.

The revenue from export of electricity stood at Nu 2.49 billion in the first six months this year, down from Nu 3.35 billion in the same period last year.

Among the top 10 goods imported, diesel topped the import list, worth Nu 5.6 billion, followed by Nu 1.9 billion worth of petrol, Nu 1.51 billion worth of rice, and Nu 1.32 billion worth of smartphones.

At the same time, Bhutan exported Nu 7.02 billion worth of ferrosilicon, Nu 1.71 billion boulders, and Nu 1.26 billion dolomite.

The unsustainable pace of increase in imports, inflationary pressure and depreciation of Ngultrum against the USD has been putting pressure on the country’s foreign reserves. 

According to the central bank, Royal Monetary Authority’s report, Bhutan’s total external reserves stood at USD 596.85 million as of May this year, adequate for 15.44 months of essential imports, barely above the constitutional requirement.

The constitution mandates that a minimum foreign currency reserve adequate to meet the cost of not less than one year’s essential import must be maintained.

According to the government’s budget report 2024-25, the current account deficit is expected to contract to 19.1 percent of gross domestic product, mainly on account of improvement in the trade balance.

The trade deficit is projected to reduce to Nu 51.69 billion in fiscal year 2023-24 compared to Nu 72.97 billion in the previous year. This is because of a reduction in imports by 8.5 percent.

For the fiscal year 2024-25, current account balance is estimated to improve to 18.9 percent and further improve by 4.4 percent in fiscal year 2025-26.

In the medium term, the current account deficit is expected to moderate mainly on account of decline in imports, as hydro-related imports decline gradually after completion of the projects.

At the same time, imports are estimated to grow at an average of 1.2 percent in the next five years while exports are expected to grow at an average of 6.9 percent.

With the commissioning of the Nikachhu hydropower plant in January this year and Punatshangchhu-II expected to commission in August this year, hydropower export is expected to grow significantly.

Chencho Dema

Punakha—The ‘Great People’s Forest Storytelling’ training event that began yesterday in Khuruthang, Punakha brought together local communities, students, and monks in a two-day immersive workshop.

The training aims to empower these participants to narrate their unique stories, emphasising Bhutan’s rich natural heritage.

The training covered mobile videography and cinematography, storytelling techniques, mobile editing, and social media dissemination strategies.

The founding managing director of Great People’s Forest at Conservation International, Saurav Malhotra, said that the main vision of the workshop is to give young people the power to tell their own stories. “We believe that those who live closest to nature are best suited to tell its stories and illustrate how it impacts people and the climate.”

‘Great People’s Forest’ is a groundbreaking cross-country initiative involving Northeast India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan. The project aims to empower diverse groups to use their cell phones to document their daily interactions with nature.

“The goal is to equip people from various walks of life—from mountains to mangroves—to narrate their experiences,” Saurav Malhotra said.

The expectation is that the trained individuals will continue sharing their stories, creating a powerful regional network.

“Bhutan is uniquely positioned to narrate how its people live harmoniously with nature daily. This training aims to equip participants with the skills to tell these stories effectively,” Saurav Malhotra added.

Participants expressed excitement about the training and the opportunity to learn to narrate stories of Bhutan through their perspective.

They learned practical skills for shooting, recording audio, and conducting interviews using mobile phones, including developing storyboards and writing scripts.

The CEO and founder of Pluc TV, Tamseel Hussain, who is also part of the training team, said that they are upskilling people on storytelling, and to get the stories out in the world,

He also pointed out the gap in conservation storytelling, which often misses the voices of those directly affected by climate change.

“This training includes monks, students, and teachers who can tell stories in ways that resonate widely,” Tamseel Hussain added. “We want to narrate the story of the Great People’s Forest and the Eastern Himalayan region through the eyes of those who live it.”

Tamseel Hussain said that these stories created by the participants will be showcased at upcoming global events like COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan and climate week in September. “We aim to correct misconceptions about the Eastern Himalayas and highlight the region’s significance,” he said.

The Great Peoples’ Forest of Eastern Himalayas, launched in September  last year, as part of India’s G20 presidency, is one of South Asia’s largest reforestation efforts.

The project is a partnership between Conservation International, USA, and Balipara Foundation, Assam, India. It aims to raise USD 1 billion by 2030 for restoration activities across Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Northeast India.

In Bhutan, the Bhutan Trust Fund for Environmental Conservation (BTF) and Bhutan Ecological Society (BES) are leading the project.

The BES plans to restore over 1,000 hectares of land in the first phase and establish a nursery capable of producing 1 million saplings annually.

The BTF will plant 150,820 native saplings in 215 hectares of degraded forest areas, including primary forest and private land, and work with 535 schools to plant over 500,000 trees. In addition, the project will establish a nursery capacity of 200,000 saplings.      

Around 1 billion people live in the mountainous regions between Bhutan and Nepal and the mangrove-growing region of India and Bangladesh.

Promoting Dzongkha has been our long-term policy since it became our national language. From briefly making Dzongkha the medium of instruction for subjects traditionally taught in English, such as history, and mandating it as a compulsory subject in national-level exams, to enforcing its use in all official settings through executive orders — we’ve tried all. Have these policies promoted Dzongkha or endeared it to young people?

Before anything else, Dzongkha is a language like any other language. And, like any other language, it evolves, or it must evolve, in a dynamic social milieu, shedding some of its antiquated formalism, acquiring new vocabulary, and broadening itself to accommodate the evolving complexity in globalised interactions, sciences, and modern culture. English rode from Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton down to Hemingway, Raymond Carver, and Stephen Hawking the same evolutionary route.

Dzongkha tries to evolve. Many young people don’t observe the formality and ornateness of past usage. But we do not always look at these evolutions kindly. Consequently, we’ve built an image of Dzongkha as a language with a rigid form that can only be altered with approval from institutions responsible for coining words and publishing grammar texts. Our aversion to loanwords hasn’t helped either; it’s encumbered Dzongkha’s ability to grow apace with advancements in science, philosophies, and modern culture. This stunted evolution has given English with its prodigious borrowing an upper hand in dislodging languages that fail to evolve. Then, authorities enforce it, lest the language should erode completely.

But let’s not snipe at the well-intended institutions’ ways of promoting Dzongkha. Below, I briefly describe areas we’ve overlooked as far as Dzongkha promotion is concerned.

Produce literature, not

dictionaries

The former Dzongkha Development Commission has produced dictionaries in their multifarious iterations — the Dzongkha dictionary, the Dzongkha-English dictionary, its reverse, and electronic dictionaries. But dictionaries (speaking as a person who once inanely attempted to commit the student’s Oxford dictionary to mind) don’t make you a skilful language user.

Literature does. But, for all the splurge in dictionaries, literary creation receives a pittance, if any. A state interested in promoting a language must support literary creation in that language. Only through literary creation can we test Dzongkha’s dynamism and its range and richness to express the multiplicity of ideas and concepts in a style intelligible to the laity. Should the state subsidise writers, and how? Yes, and I explain my thinking below.

Bhutan’s writing market is minuscule, and for Dzongkha, that market is entirely local. So, the daring one must muster to spend months researching and writing materials in Dzongkha for the current market is economically foolish. The least we can do for a writer willing to write something in simplified, accessible Dzongkha is help him/her to foot their bills at least for the duration it takes to research and write it.

I am not talking in terms of percentage of GDP here. Writing fellowships and residency programmes can provide that assurance. But where are such programmes in our country? The government could help the colleges in the Royal University create residency programmes or fellowships to provide writers-in-residence with a roof, a writing space, and a decent allowance. A writer in residence, while mainly focusing on creating a publishable work, can teach a few classes in Dzongkha composition to the students taking such a course. Better still is to open composition classes to all interested students from any discipline; good writers can come from any discipline. Universities elsewhere have such programmes, and many writers and books are born out of them.

Writers-in-residence may work on different projects, ranging from fiction, biography, translation, poetry, and so on. Why, a writing fellow in poetry, for example, may write a book of free verse in Dzongkha, liberating Dzongkha poetry from the confines of traditional meter and prosody. The translation is another exciting area. Bringing high-quality works from other languages into Dzongkha can not only expand the Dzongkha reading materials but also expose Bhutanese audiences to new writing styles and ways of using Dzongkha for different genres.

I’d queue up to buy a Dzongkha translation of Raymond Carver’s ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Love’. But that’s a far cry when we don’t even have a Dzongkha version of such an important work as ‘The History of Bhutan’ by Lopen Karma Phuntsho. Many literate Bhutanese whose education is mainly in Choekey or  Dzongkha are denied access to a very high-quality scholarship on Bhutanese history. This is but the tip of the iceberg. Dare I suggest the money we put into creating dictionaries be diverted to funding fellowships for Dzongkha writers?

Teaching Dzongkha

as a language

We unjustly place the onus of promoting Dzongkha on our students, who see their syllabi changed and the subject weights in exams haphazardly readjusted. State patronage of a language is a blessing, but it should not turn into a nosy aunt’s hug. What we do must endear the language to the users. Is the way we teach the language to the young people endearing Dzongkha to them? Not particularly — I’m afraid. Dzongkha is presented, perhaps rightly, as a sanctified language by virtue of its sharing the script with Choekey. As a result, Dzongkha comes to the kids in its sartorial splendour of spirituality.

Students study Gyalsey Laglen for Dzongkha literature in the ninth and tenth classes.  This splendid poetry is treated more the way a religious canon is treated and less the way a piece of literature should be treated in a literature class. Students mug up the text, argue its spiritual themes, and even recite it, while overlooking its marvellous literary quality. The verses’ remarkable aspects – the rich metaphors, the captivating beauty of the stanzas, and the writer’s masterful handling of profound themes in ordinary language – are all ignored.

Deconstructing technicalities is too advanced for the level, some may argue, argumentative as we are. But a language’s potential for beauty, flexibility, and richness remains hidden unless we use the language not just for official documents but also for fiction, poetry, and essays. To do that, we must learn from what is already written. Perhaps it will help Dzongkha if we relax on the spiritual side a bit to focus on the principles of composition.

Institutions must not police the language use; they must at best document changes. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language is a handy example. It observes the way people use the English language and updates the social conventions of language use and new coinages. Languages change with time; new words are coined, new ways of expression are accepted, and new uses for old forms are invented.

When scientists declared that Pluto was no longer a planet, the noun Pluto saw a functional shift, that is, the noun was now repurposed to act as a verb as well. Then, to be plutoed was to get demoted or devalued.

Are we willing such daring in our language? I mean, simply, can we perhaps not mind, say, jigs as an adjective in daily interactions despite its plebeian origin in the peccadillo of the millennials? English, seen as Dzongkha’s threat, is what it is not because of the hubris of sticklers who burn with indignation when you end a sentence with a preposition or attempt boldly to split an infinitive. It is a product of evolution, instead.

Without serious initiatives to create literature and endear the language to the younger generation, token gestures and exhortations will only cast Dzongkha as a pampered child of overbearing parents. We want others to appreciate our kid, admire her eloquence, and be awed by her cleverness while locking her up in her room all the time, lest she should ingest dirt and pick slang on the street. But it’s the street where you’ll ingest starlight, too.

Contributed by

Benu, Australia

Yangyel Lhaden

Residents of South Thimphu were elated upon hearing the news of water supply restoration after many days. However, their happiness was short-lived as the water pipe burst again within 24 hours when the thromde attempted to release water two days ago. This incident has prolonged the residents’ struggle with the ongoing water issue.

South Thimphu residents have been without water since last Friday. A landslide, triggered by incessant rain, washed away portions of two pipes that supply water from the Chamgang water source.

These pipes supply water to the Changbangdu, Lungtenphu, Olakha, Changzamtog, and Babesa areas.

Water pipe burst site

Day before yesterday, after fixing the broken pipes and constructing reinforced cement concrete (RCC) around the damaged pipe to protect it from the elements, the thromde office tried releasing water from the 350-millimetre (mm) water pipe. However, another crack occurred near the first damage site in the 350mm pipe yesterday. The thromde is now fixing the pipe again.

“We were able to supply water to some parts of Changzamtog, Olakha, Changjalu, and Lungtenphu through the 350 mm water pipe,” a thromde official said. “We did not release water from the 250 mm pipe because we feared that releasing water from both pipes together could break the newly formed RCC due to the enormous water pressure.”

However, the official, said that since the whole adjacent area was affected by the landslide, even while releasing water from 350mm pipe had caused further cracks. “We are working on to fixing this pipe which will take less than 24 hours and we plan to release water today.”

The 250mm pipe serves water to Changbangdu, Changzamtok, and some parts of Babesa. Babesa is also fed with Royal Thimphu College (RTC) water source which is why only some parts of Babesa, which is supplied water by 250mm pipe of Chamgang water source is affected.

The Thimphu thromde office notified the public yesterday through a public notification on their social media page, apologising to the public for the disheartening news that the 350 mm pipe had burst again. They assured the public that the pipe would be fixed within the next 24 hours. In the meantime, they are providing tanker services to all affected areas without a specific time limit.

“To ensure we provide less inconvenience to the public and enhance the water supply, we have hired water tanks from the Royal Bhutan Police and Royal Bhutan Army, bringing our total water tank fleet to five,” a Thimphu thromde official said.

The affected residents are advised to call tanker service at 17310510

Sherab Lhamo

Bhutan’s national airline, Drukair, is planning to spread its wings to soar into new international skies.

Drukair signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Airbus on July 22 to acquire three A320neo and two A321XLR aircraft in a bid to expand its routes to new international destinations.

The MoU was signed at the Farnborough Air Show in England led by Drukair CEO Tandi Wangchuk, Chief Pilot Yab Dasho Dhondup Gyaltshen, and members of the Drukair board.

Airbus is a European aerospace and defense company that designs, manufactures, and delivers aircraft, space systems, and related services.

With the delivery of the aircrafts anticipated to start in 2030, Drukair will be flying to new destinations in Europe, South East Asia and Australia.

Drukair plans to fly out of Paro International Airport and the new international airport in the planned Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC).

In a press statement released by Airbus, Drukair CEO, Tandi Wangchuk, said  this dovetails perfectly with the development of the GMC and the works to expand the Gelephu airport. “Drukair’s investment in these aircrafts underscores our dedication to supporting Bhutan’s vision of holistic and mindful development.”

The Executive Vice President Sales of Airbus Commercial Aircraft business, Benoît de Saint-Exupéry, said Airbus is grateful to Drukair for reaffirming its trust in Airbus to power their next phase of growth. “Airbus has been a long-standing partner of Bhutan and we are extremely proud that our latest generation aircraft will be a part of the Kingdom’s next chapter of development, connecting the Gelephu Mindfulness City to the rest of the world.”

Drukair currently operates four Airbus A320 Family aircrafts, consisting of three A319s and one A320.

Drukair operates in nine international destinations, of which five countries are in the South Asian region, including New Delhi, Bagdogra, Guwahati, Bodh Gaya, and Kolkata in India, Kathmandu in Nepal, Dhaka in Bangladesh, Bangkok in Thailand, and Singapore.

As per Airbus’s press release, the A321neo is the largest member of Airbus’ best-selling A320neo family, offering unparalleled range and performance.

The A321neo boasts of 50 percent noise reduction and more than 20 percent fuel saving and carbon dioxide reduction. It also maximises passenger comfort in the widest single-aisle cabin in the sky.

The A321XLR offers unprecedented range and fuel efficiency with an extra long range of up to 4,700nm (Nautical Mile) and 30 percent lower fuel burn per seat compared with previous generation competitor aircraft, with reduced nitrogen oxide emissions and noise.

The A321XLR offers passengers a spacious airspace cabin, offering seats in all classes with the same high-comfort as on a long-haul wide-body, with the low costs of a single-aisle aircraft, according to the press release.

Staff Reporter

Punakha – A car accident at Okalum, Toedpisa gewog in Punakha around 8:00 PM on July 24 killed a man in his 50s and injured four others.

The vehicle, carrying five farmers including the driver, was en route to Thimphu from Wangduephodrang when it veered approximately 7 metres off the road. A passerby reported the incident to the Lobesa Community Police Centre.

The driver, a 37-year-old farmer from Wangdue, sustained cut injuries. The three other passengers were also injured and were immediately rushed to Wangdue Hospital for treatment. The deceased was found dead inside the vehicle.

The deceased, originally from Dawakha, Paro, was residing in Wangbama, Thimphu.

His body has been handed over to his relatives.

Speeding is suspected to be the cause of the accident.

The plan is to produce 710 tonnes of green hydrogen fuel annually by 2030

YK Poudel

In a stride towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on imported fossil fuels, the Department of Energy under the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources launched the National Green Hydrogen Roadmap on July 24, with the target to produce 710 tonnes of green hydrogen fuel annually for domestic consumption by 2030 and 70,000 tonnes by 2050.

Hydrogen, known for its ability to be stored in liquid or gas form, is a clean, versatile, and efficient energy source. It can be produced from renewable resources such as solar, wind, hydro, and biomass, offering a myriad of applications including e-fuel for locomotives, electricity generation, heating, and industrial processes, among others.

According to the Roadmap, venturing into green hydrogen allows Bhutan to capitalise on its competitive renewable electricity costs, enhance energy security, reduce trade imbalances, and create a diverse energy system and maintain carbon neutrality.

A five-megawatt green hydrogen plant will soon be constructed near the Gidakom Mini Power Plant to meet the demands of fuel cell vehicles.

Bhutan aims to establish its first hydrogen export routes by 2030, focusing primarily on Asian markets such as China and India.

Bhutan’s strategic position in South Asia provides access to a large and expanding  hydrogen market in the region, states the roadmap.

Globally, about 120 million tonnes of hydrogen is produced, two-third of which is pure hydrogen and one-third mixture form. China produces 24 million tonnes annually, and leads both in production and  consumption of hydrogen fuel.

The International Renewable Energy Agency projects that hydrogen could meet 12 percent of global energy demand by 2050, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent.

Initially presented at the 28th Conference of Parties on December 5  and as part of Bhutan’s longstanding commitment to carbon neutrality under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change since 1992, the National Green Hydrogen Roadmap reinforces Bhutan’s dedication to sustainable development, food security, human settlements, and surface transportation.

The roadmap outlines the procedures and milestones required to integrate green hydrogen across various sectors, and several challenges, including domestic demand shortages, limited technical expertise, financial constraints, and the need for a robust regulatory framework.

According to a study, Bhutan’s energy consumption is projected to increase sixfold by 2050, with the transportation sector as the primary greenhouse gas emitter. Bhutan aims to maintain its carbon neutrality by promoting electric vehicles and public transportation.

According to Bhutan’s greenhouse gas inventory, Bhutan’s sequestration of 9.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) against emissions of 3.8 million tonnes of CO2e in 2015 exceeded the Paris Agreement’s carbon-neutral goal, reaching a net carbon sink balance of 5.6 million tonnes of CO2e.

Bhutan’s second Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) points out the need for USD 3.44 billion in investments by 2030 to tackle climate change and achieve Sustainable Development Goals.

Druk Holding and Investments, Druk Green Power Corporation, Bhutan Power Corporation, Electricity Regulatory Authority, Bhutan Construction and Transport Authority, and Bhutan Power System Operator are key agencies for the implementation of the Roadmap.

༉ ཁ་ཙ་དྲོ་པ་ ཀྲོང་གསར་གྱི་ ཁྲིམས་སྲུང་འགག་པ་གིས་ ལྡོག་ཕྱོགས་ཚོགས་པའི་ སྤྱི་ཚོགས་ཀྱི་འཐུས་མི་ཅིག་གིས་ ལོ་༢ ཀྱི་ཧེ་མར་ བུམོ་ཅིག་ལུ་ འདོད་སྤྱོད་གནོད་འཚེ་འབད་བའི་ དོགས་པ་ལུ་བརྟེན་ འཛིན་བཟུང་འབད་ནུག།
ཨིན་རུང་ ཁྲིམས་འདུན་གྱིས་ ཁྲིམས་མཐུན་ངོས་ལེན་འབད་བའི་ཤུལ་ལས་ དེ་ཚེ་ར་ བཏང་ཡོདཔ་ཨིན་པས།
ཁྲིམས་སྲུང་འགག་པའི་ འགོ་དཔོན་ཚུ་གིས་ སླབ་མིའི་ནང་ འཐུས་མི་གི་བཀག་སྲུང་དེ་ སྤྱི་ཟླ་༧ པའི་ཚེས་༢༣ ལུ་ དུས་ཚོད་རྫོགས་ནུག་ཟེར་ཨིནམ་ད་ སྤྱི་ཚོགས་ཀྱི་ བཅའ་ཁྲིམས་དང་འཁྲིལ་བ་ཅིན་ སྤྱི་ཚོགས་ཀྱི་ ཚོགས་བཞུགས་འགོ་མ་བཙུགས་པའི་ཧེ་མར་ ཉིན་གྲངས་༡༥ དང་ ཚོགས་བཞུགས་མཇུག་བསྡུ་སྟེ་ ཉིན་གྲངས་༡༥ འི་ནང་འཁོད་ལུ་ འཛིན་བཟུང་འབད་མ་ཆོགཔ་སྦེ་ ཡོདཔ་ཨིན་པས།
ཁྲིམས་སྲུང་འགག་པའི་ འགོ་དཔོན་ཚུ་གིས་ བཤད་མིའི་ནང་ ཁྲིམས་སྲུང་འགག་པ་གིས་ ཁྲིམས་འདུན་ལས་ འཛིན་བཟུང་འབད་ཆོག་པའི་ གནང་བ་ལེན་པའི་ཤུལ་ལས་ སྤྱི་ཚོགས་ཀྱི་འཐུས་མི་དེ་ འཛིན་བཟུང་འབད་ཡི་ཟེར་ཨིན་པས།
འཐུས་མི་གིས་ ཀྲོང་གསར་ཁྲིམས་སྲུང་འགག་སྡེ་ལུ་ ངག་བརྗོད་ཕུལ་མི་དང་འཁྲིལཝ་ད་ ཉེས་འཛུགས་ག་ར་ ངོས་ལེན་མེདཔ་སྦེ་ཡོདཔ་བཞིན་དུ་ ཁྲིམས་སྲུང་འགག་པ་ལུ་ བདེན་པ་འཐོབ་ནིའི་དོན་ལུ་ གནད་དོན་དེ་ ལེགས་ཤོམ་སྦེ་ ཞིབ་དཔྱད་འབད་དགོཔ་སྦེ་ སླབ་སྟེ་ཡོདཔ་ཨིན་པས།
གནད་དོན་ཤེས་མི་ཚུ་གིས་ ཀུན་གསལ་ལུ་ སླབ་མིའི་ནང་ འཐུས་མི་གིས་ ཁོ་རའི་ཁྲིམས་རྩོདཔ་དང་གཅིག་ཁར་ ཁྲིམས་སྲུང་འགག་སྡེའི་ཡིག་ཚང་ནང་ འོང་ཡོདཔ་སྦེ་ཨིན་པས།
ཉམས་རྒུད་པའི་ ཨའི་གིས་ མོ་རའི་སྐྱེས་ལོ་༡༦ ལང་མི་བུམོ་དེ་ སྨན་བཅོས་འབད་བར་ འོང་བའི་ཤུལ་ལས་ སྤྱི་ཟླ་༧ པའི་ཚེས་༩ ལུ་ རྩོད་རྙོགས་དེ་ པདྨ་དྲུང་ཆེན་ཡིག་ཚང་གིས་ ཀྲོང་གསར་ཁྲིམས་སྲུང་འགག་སྡེ་ལུ་ བཙུགས་ཡོདཔ་ཨིན་པས།
བུམོ་དེ་གི་ ཨའི་གིས་ བཀོད་མིའི་ནང་ འཐུས་མི་ཁོ་ར་ ལོ་༢ ཀྱི་ཧེ་མར་ ནུབ་སྦིས་རྒེད་འོག་ནང་ བདག་སྐྱོང་འགོ་དཔོན་སྦེ་ ཕྱག་ཞུ་བའི་སྐབས་ མོ་གི་བུམོ་དེ་ལུ་ འདོད་སྤྱོད་གནོད་འཚེ་འབད་ཡོདཔ་སྦེ་ཨིན་པས།
འདས་པའི་དྲི་བ་དྲིས་ལན་སྐབས་ བུམོ་དེ་གི་ ཨའི་གིས་ ཀུན་གསལ་ལུ་ སླབ་མིའི་ནང་ འཐུས་མི་གིས་ མོ་གི་ཁྱིམ་ནང་སོང་སྟེ་ བུམོ་གི་ ཨོམ་གཡོནམ་གུ་ བཤེད་ནུག་ཟེར་ཨིནམ་ད་ དེ་བསྒང་ ཨའི་དེ་ མོ་རའི་ཆ་རོགས་ཚུ་དང་ ཤ་མུ་འཚོལ་བར་ སོང་ཡོདཔ་ཨིན་པས།
བུམོ་གི་བཟའ་ཚང་དེ་ སྤྱི་ཚོགས་ཀྱི་འཐུས་མིའི་ ཁྱིམ་གྱི་ཉེ་འདབས་ ཁོ་གི་ཕོ་རྒནམ་གི་ ཁྱིམ་ཆུང་ཀུ་ཅིག་ནང་ སྡོད་དོ་ཡོདཔ་ཨིན་པས།
འདས་པའི་དྲི་བ་དྲིས་ལན་སྐབས་ འཐུས་མི་གིས་ ཀུན་གསལ་ལུ་ ཉེས་འཛུགས་དེ་ ངོས་ལེན་མེདཔ་སྦེ་ བཤད་ཡོདཔ་ད་ ཁོ་གིས་འབད་བ་ཅིན་ གནད་དོན་བྱུང་བའི་སྐབས་ ཁོ་ར་ ཕྱི་ཁར་ཆུ་གཡུར་ཕྱགས་ཏེ་སྡོད་ཡོདཔ་ད་ བུམོ་གི་ ཁྱིམ་ནང་ཡང་ ཕྱགསམ་ས་ཀྲ་ཅིག་ ལེན་པར་སོང་ཡི་ཟེར་ཨིན་པས།
དེ་བསྒང་ བུམོ་དེ་ མལ་ཆ་གིས་སྤུར་ཏེ་ ཉལ་སྡོད་སར་མཐོང་ཡོདཔ་ལས་ མལ་ཆ་འཐེན་པའི་སྐབས་ རྟོག་མེད་དུ་ བུམོ་དེ་ལུ་ རེག་ནུག་ཟེར་ཨིན་པས།
གནས་ཚུལ་བཤད་མི་ཚུ་གིས་ གནད་དོན་དེ་ དེ་བསྒང་ལས་ ནང་འགྲིག་འབད་དེ་ བསལ་ཡོདཔ་ཨིན་པས།
བུམོ་གི་ཨའི་གིས་ སླབ་མིའི་ནང་ འཐུས་མི་གིས་ མོ་གི་བུམོ་ལུ་ གློག་རིག་ལེབ་ཊོབ་བྱིན་ཡོདཔ་ད་ ཨིན་རུང་ འཐུས་མི་གིས་ སླབ་མི་དང་འཁྲིལཝ་ད་ ལེབ་ཊོབ་རྙིངམ་ཅིག་ བུམོ་གི་བཟའ་ཚང་ལུ་ བྱིན་ཡོདཔ་ལས་ གནད་དོན་དེ་ལུ་ འབྲེལ་བ་ག་ནི་ཡང་ མེད་ཟེར་ཨིན་པས།
འཐུས་མི་གིས་ སླབ་མིའི་ནང་ བུམོ་གི་ བཟའ་ཚང་ལུ་ གོ་ལ་དང་ ཅ་ཆས་གཞན་ཚུ་ཡང་ བྱིན་ནི་ཡོད་ཟེར་ཨིན་པས།
འཕྲལ་ཁམས་ཅིག་ཁར་ ཉམས་རྒུདཔ་བུམོ་དང་ ཨའི་གིས་ པདྨ་དྲུང་ཆེན་ཡིག་ཚང་ནང་ སྨན་བཅོས་འབད་བར་ སོང་མི་དེ་ཡང་ བུམོ་དེ་ བདེ་ཏོག་ཏོ་མེད་པའི་ཁར་ ཧེ་མའི་ གནད་དོན་དེ་ ལོག་དྲན་མི་ལུ་བརྟེན་ཨིན་ཟེར་ ཨིན་པའི་གནས་ཚུལ།

ཨོ་རྒྱན་རྡོ་རྗེ།

KP Sharma

With a budget of over Nu 700 million, the Ministry of Education and Skills Development (MoESD) plans to establish more Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) centres and renovate existing ones in the 13th plan.

The focus will also be on building infrastructure, play facilities, and procuring learning resources, according to the ministry’s plan.

As per the plan, the ministry will construct over 100 ECCD centres and renovate more than 80 existing facilities to ensure 100 percent reach for children below five years and improve the quality of education from the grassroots level.

The ministry also plans to start home-based schooling in areas with low enrollment, where establishing a formal ECCD centre is challenging.

This intervention aims to ensure that ECCD services reach all children, leaving no child behind in accessing early education opportunities.

The ministry has allocated Nu 460 million for establishing new ECCD centres and equipping them with adequate infrastructure, play facilities, and learning resources.

Nu 330.5 million has been allocated for the professional development of ECCD facilitators and inclusive education teachers.

According to the officials at the Department of School Education (DSE), the home-based ECCD intervention will be established in chiwogs with low enrollment, where children will be provided with play kits and resources under parental guidance.Facilitators from the nearest centres will visit the children monthly.

About 472 chiwogs have ECCD centres, whereas about 567 chiwogs lack such facilities.

Among these centres, the ministry plans to integrate 295 ECCDs with a school up to class three.

Although the ministry initially planned to establish schools with ECCD facilities in 207 chiwogs, it was found that not all chiwogs need such facilities, as some sparsely populated chiwogs share a school.

To ensure the quality of facilitators, the ministry proposes reducing the teacher-student ratio from 1:15 to 1:8 under the national teacher service programme.

A Postgraduate Diploma programme in ECCD will be introduced at Paro College of Education to improve facilitators’ qualifications.

Currently, the ECCD facilitators are typically Class 12 graduates with only two weeks of training, deemed inadequate for acquiring necessary skills and enhancing professional service.

There are 561 ECCD centres in the country, including 475 government-owned, 62 privately owned, 20 workplace-based, and four operated by non-governmental organisations.

His Majesty the King was on a three-day visit to the Indian state of Gujarat from July 22 to 24, accompanied by the Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay.

His Majesty was warmly welcomed by the government and people of Gujarat on the visit, during which, His Majesty visited various infrastructure projects and sites in the state.

On June 22, His Majesty was received at Vadodara Airport by Minister of State Shri Jagdish Vishwakarma, who accompanied His Majesty and Lyonchen on a visit to the Statue of Unity. Built to honour the great Indian statesman Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel as the architect of independent India, the 182m statue is the tallest in the world. His Majesty also visited the nearby Sardar Sarovar Dam, the second largest gravity dam in the world in terms of volume of concrete used. His Majesty was then received at Ahmedabad Airport by Gujarat Chief Minister, Shri Bhupendra Patel, who hosted a dinner in honour of the visit in Gandhinagar, the State capital.

On July 23, His Majesty visited the 30,000MW Hybrid Renewable Energy Park in Khavda, Gujarat, the world’s largest renewable energy Project, being built by Adani Green Energy Ltd, yesterday. His Majesty also visited Mundra Port, India’s largest container port and largest commercial port, owned and operated by Adani Ports and SEZ Limited.

Before embarking for Bhutan on July 23, His Majesty visited Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City), a central business district under construction in Ahmedabad, which is expected to become India’s first operational greenfield smart city and international financial services centre.

His Majesty thanked the government and people of Gujarat for the warm welcome accorded to the Bhutanese delegation – a reflection of the exceptional traditional hospitality that Gujarat, and India as a whole, is known for.

The visit to India aimed to further co-operation between India and Bhutan in the infrastructure development and related sectors, and explore collaboration opportunities for the Gelephu Mindfulness City project.

Chencho Dema

Gangtey—Fifty-one-year-old Wangda Dorji, a potato farmer from Gangtey in Wangdue, faced numerous challenges last year transporting his potato to Phuentsholing. The delayed auction rippled into delayed payments, potatoes rotting due to humid weather, and additional waiting charges for trucks, making the auction process painfully arduous.

This year, he is not worried about having to take his potatoes to Phuentsholing, thanks to the Potato Trade Facilitation Centre that has been established in Gangtey Gewog.

Inaugurated on July 23, this first-of-its-kind centre is equipped with state-of-the-art machinery for grading, washing, and drying, sorting and packaging potatoes. It is also equipped with an online trading (auction) service.

The centre is built on a three-acre land at a total cost of Nu 75.67 million. A warehouse, located a few metres from the centre, has been built to store potatoes with a capacity of 500 MT.

The centre will cater to people of Gangtey and five other gewogs in Wangdue district.

The potato farmers of Phobjikha, Gangtey and Saephu usually transport potatoes to Phuentsholing for auction.  This posed numerous challenges.

During the auction in 2023, hundreds of kilogrammes of potatoes from Phobjikha and Gangtey were spoiled because farmers had to wait more than two weeks for the auction to take place at the yard in Phuentsholing.

Potato is the primary source of income for people of Phobjikha and Gangtey

Each truckload of potato costs between Nu 30,000 to Nu 40,000 to reach Phuentsholing. Each household sells between one to four truckloads annually.

Now, the centre will facilitate online auction of potatoes for farmers from Gangtey, Phobjikha, Bjena, Saephu, Dangchu and Rubesa gewogs.

Farmers will have to pay 4 percent of the value of every kilogramme as user fee to the centre.

Potato farmers in Wangdue can now save substantial time and costs.

Pemo, 39, from Pangkarpo village, said that she is looking forward to using the services in the centre.

Potato is among Bhutan’s most valuable cash crops, playing a crucial role in food security and the livelihoods of nearly all farming households.

Over 60 percent of the total potatoes produced in the country are exported, earning around Nu 750 million annually.

Potato is the primary source of income for people of Phobjikha and Gangtey gewogs. Farmers in Gangtey, Phobjikha, and Saephu Gewogs earn about 80 percent of their household income from potato sale.

Wangdue district accounts for around 67 percent of total potato production in the country. Of this, Gangtey alone accounts for  37 percent of potatoes produced in the district, with 90 percent being exported.

Bhutan’s farmers face increasing marketing challenges due to changing international market conditions, formalisation of trade with new regulations and standardisation requirements, and emerging competitions.

The Officiating Chief Economic Development and Marketing Officer of Department of Agricultural Marketing and Cooperatives, Jamyang Lophyal, said that even to export to India, which is the main market, Bhutanese potatoes must now meet a range of stringent standards and specific prerequisites, such as being soil-free, pest-free, and has to be properly graded and packed in standard weights.

Agriculture minister Younten Phuntsho, who inaugurated the Potato Trade Facilitation Centre, said that the government is establishing these centres in strategic locations to enhance value chain and marketability, help meet new market requirements, and enable entry into other international markets.

“It will also lead to higher commercial production, boosting rural income, and creating employment opportunities,” Lyonpo said.

The UNDP Resident Representative, Mohammad Younus, described the centre as a groundbreaking initiative. “This centre is a game changer. Farmers can now trade their potatoes from Gangtey, at source, leading to increased exports, better prices, and improved livelihoods,” he said.

A similar centre is under construction in Chumey, Bumthang, and the construction of another one in Khaling, Trashigang will begin next year.

The CEO of Food Corporation of Bhutan Limited, Dorji Tashi, said that implementing online auctions at the source is a significant step for Bhutan’s potato marketing.

He said that the centre eliminates the need for farmers to transport potatoes to Phuentsholing, cutting transportation costs and effort. “The online auction directly from the warehouse will ensure prompt payment, and also reduce reliance on middlemen, ensuring farmers receive a fair share of the profits.”

He added that the warehouse will provide storage facilities, protecting potatoes from heat and damage, ensuring better quality. “However, more efforts will have to be made to convince the farmer of the benefits.”

The centre was built with financial support from the GEF-LDCF through UNDP, the Hand-In-Hand Initiatives of Food and Agriculture Organisation, and the government of Bhutan.

The Thimphu Thromde’s two multi-level car park (MLCP), involved in multiple controversies, including an Anti-Corruption Commission investigation,  is now at the risk of becoming a white elephant.

Going by the findings of the thromde’s own survey, the two parking buildings, constructed after spending millions of Ngultrum, is inconvenient and inaccessible.

Fifty percent of the  662 respondents found the location of the facilities inconvenient; 29 percent said there are other spaces available; while 17 percent found the facility user-unfriendly because of the entry gate, turnings and lighting, making it difficult to use.

The sample size and the manner in which the survey was conducted could be questioned, but it is a good indication of the problems in the two massive structures in the middle of the city. It is of a huge concern if the parking buildings built to ease the parking space are underutilised because of inconvenience. It could be true that some of us may find it difficult to get used to driving and parking at MLCPs, but if it is a problem, the whole purpose is defeated. 

The MLCP is one of the first PPP projects in the capital. From controversy and feedback, it is a failure and a lesson for our planners and decision makers about what could be considered in spending public resources. A lot has been tried to make it work, including pushing vegetable vendors to the MLCP. The only thing working is the businesses in the MLCP even if it was not the priority.

The big question, if the findings of the survey is taken seriously, is who should be held accountable. A lot has changed since the MLCP was constructed. People, including those involved in planning, decision making and approving authority, have moved on. The issue should not be scrapped with a survey report. The public wants answers.

Meanwhile, what is at the core of the problem is the parking system in the capital city and other thromdes. The parking fee is a good source of revenue for the thromdes. The way they execute is depriving them of revenue and enriching a few businesses.

An everyday complaint among the capital’s residents is the burden of parking fees.  While the MLCP is in focus, it is a good time to look into our parking fee system. Some organisations make good income from parking fees while people are being left complaining.

Why should a client of a bank, for instance, pay Nu 100 for the time he spent in the bank resolving an issue? Why should people worried about their relatives in an intensive care unit argue with parking fee collectors over a few hundred ngultrums?

Above all, why should a few businesses or individuals benefit from the fee while the thromdes are begging the government for funds to improve public services.

The findings of the thromde’s survey should be used to improve services without congesting the city.

My mother recently joined Facebook and WhatsApp. It’s a joy for me and my siblings; we can have moments together virtually despite being located in different parts of the county.

This is the boon of social media. Social media helped connect families, friends and relatives from far and near. People no longer run for errands in the villages. The rate at which social media helps in disseminating information is manifold more efficient and quicker than any traditional means could ever aspire to. Social capital that functions as glue keeping our communities together, such as mutual and reciprocal support, collective efforts to build and maintain shared monuments, and help during distress has come even in the virtual space.

It is heartwarming to see people — known and unknown — donate money for medical treatments from across the country and abroad. Decent social media influencers bring changes in the society with advocacy in various platforms. Increasing government agencies and hospitals are using social media to communicate with the public and encourage public participation in better service delivery.

Observations from our everyday experience to research evidence all show social media is a powerful platform — a platform with immense potential to change lives for good or for worse. We see social media users becoming celebrities by showcasing their talent, creativity and content creation. There are Bhutanese TikTokers earning money by going live in TikTok. YouTubers and other social media users monetise their contents and add to their sources of income. In fact, I am myself a beneficiary of social media: when I had completed my first book I was still a student and short of funds to publish it.

It was the early pioneers of our social media community who came to my help by thinking up the idea of crow-sourcing funds for publication. That scheme born of collective ideas essentially mobilized by then popular social media, blog, has helped not just me but many young Bhutanese writers to release their books.

Darker side of social media

However, everything is not going well on social media. On 13 July, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a notification calling for decency in the use of popular social media platforms — TikTok. It is a nuisance to see people using offensive, derogatory and hateful language on social media, that has the potential to cause social disharmony in the community. For example, recently a clip of two girls losing their cool through highly indecent language made rounds in the social media, pushed ever forward by social media features that have brought sharing, redistributing and reacting on such ‘viral’ posts on the fingertips.

There are some social media users who shout venomous, derogatory and racial remarks. Such contents get recycled in many iterations of sound bites, memes, stills and such paraphernalia of the digital world, each with its own life force of sensationalism and long lifespan.

The recycling is done to gain some more followers and more money. But at what price? The price we pay for creating wounds in the social psyche will trouble us for a very long time.

As much as social media helped me connect with my mom, she is vulnerable to fall victim to scams and pyramid schemes. People lost their hard earned money to hackers. Earlier urban dwellers were targeted, and as social media sipped into rural communities, now villagers are targeted.

Despite repeated reminders and advocacy, many villagers continue to be victims of scams and learn lessons only when irredeemable losses are incurred. Recently, the Puth Scheme looted the Bhutanese, including the literate lot. The incident shows the pitiable state of social media literacy in Bhutan.

We don’t engage in decent deliberation and constructive criticism. Even when people start a good discussion on social media, people hurl personal or defamatory comments, fetching a massive spate of reactions. What’s more shocking is that it’s often the first comment in the post that almost always sways the whole audience who support the claims as canonical truth, and most of them would have no idea what they are doing. They just do it because somebody did it. For example, a recent story in Kuensel about a child who died of mushroom poisoning sparked flakes of criticism on healthcare professionals, but nobody talked about advocacy on mushroom poisoning.

There are also random accusations in social media about civil servants using social media during duty hours to the extent of disrupting the service delivery. It is equally concerning to see people staying overnight live on TikTok. Studies show that avid social media users often have low self-esteem in real life because they don’t appear as fair as they appear in filtered social media contents. Such things come at the cost of physical, mental and social health of the person.

And of course, anonymity has given a free reign to our baser instincts, and a lot of incognito accounts hurl sinister slenders at recognisable individuals and cook up specious conspiracy theories which a good many of us subscribe to. Little can be done to curb this category of people. It’s upon us to become careful consumers of social media content. Is the content coming from credible sources? Is the new story ‘viral’ on social media too good to be true? Some fundamental questions must always be between us and the social media content we are about to consume.

Way forward

For all the ills of social media I have highlighted, I do not call for a blanket ban of social media. In some countries in the neighborhood, the failure of traditional mainstream media, by being co-opted by political elites and through their own failures, gave rise to social media as an alternative media channel, provoking a pre-emotive gag by their government, lest media continue to do its democratic function in any of its iteration. Such extreme measures must be scoffed at without a second thought. Censorship and government control are dangerous tools, and I don’t endorse any of those.

What I am calling for is, the social media users to apply restraint and respect the time honoured social mores and ways of conduct. We must learn to engage in decent deliberations to help generate new ideas. We must get inspired by the decent social media users who exercise decency, creativity and talents to not only entertain but also educate their followers. Even if we cannot inspire or entertain, we definitely shouldn’t engage in any activities that threaten social harmony and stability. The price we pay in terms of strained relations, social disharmony and emotional toll will far outweigh the small monetary gains we make and additional followers we attract.

Nonetheless, if there is obvious evidence of violation of social conducts, concerned authorities must watch and be responsive when consumers have issues and respond as per the existing laws.

Contributed by

Monu Tamang

Central Regional

Referral Hospital,

Gelephu 

Yangyel Lhaden

Residents of South Thimphu have been without water since last Friday after a landslide, triggered by incessant rain, washed away portions of two pipes that bring water from the Chamgang water source.

These pipes supply water to Changbangdu, Lungtenphu, Olakha, and Babesa areas. 

At the burst site, a steep slope about 60 metres below the main road – 4km from Chamgang – some 20 Thromde employees worked tirelessly to fix the pipes under the threat of further landslides.

The site is a mess. Littered with garbage and broken glasses, and loose, and unstable soil which made their work even more challenging.

The team used sandbags to stabilise the pipes. But another landslide on Monday forced them to change their plan by constructing a reinforced cement concrete (RCC) structure to secure the pipes.

The team used 10 pipes, each measuring six metres, to transport the cement mixture from the road above to construct the RCC.

The team worked through continuous rain, using plastic coverings to protect the RCC while some workers patrolled the road above to prevent garbage or stones from being thrown, ensuring the safety of those below.

The RCC construction was completed on Tuesday.

A worker at the site said that they were in constant fear of a landslide because the soil was loose. “Whenever we dug a foundation, soil erosion would fill it. We were worried that continuous rain could bring down the boulders.”

With the restoration of the water pipes, water supply is expected to resume soon.

A resident in Olakha, Sonam, had been carrying water from his office daily. “It has been a struggle, but I appreciate the thromde office’s efforts to fix the pipe and release water soon.”

Another resident in Changbangdu said that the local leader had been very active, sending timely information in their WhatsApp group about the water tank arrival and updates on the restoration project at the pipe burst site with videos. “The timely information has been reassuring.”

During the period without water, the residents, unprepared for this sudden drought, found themselves lining up at the Thimphu Thromde tanks. These tanks, their last hope, released precious water even in the late hours, under the monsoon rain.

“I reached home only at 4am during the water crisis period as I was supplying water,” a water tank driver said.

This is not the first time residents of these areas have faced water shortage. Water pipes bursting in summer and water source drying up in winter cause frequent water shortages for the residents of South Thimphu.

South Thimphu residents are calling for more permanent solutions to prevent such situations in the future.

The MP has denied the allegations

Chencho Dema

Trongsa police arrested the Member of Parliament (MP) from the opposition party yesterday morning for allegedly molesting a child two years ago. The court granted him bail on the same day.

Police officials said that the MP’s immunity expired on July 23. According to the Parliament Act, MPs cannot be summoned 15 days prior to and 15 days after a parliamentary session.

Police officials said that the police sought the arrest warrant from the court and after he was arrested, he was produced before the court.

In his statement to Trongsa police, the MP has denied all allegations against him and asked the police to thoroughly investigate the case to bring out the truth.

Sources told Kuensel that the MP had brought along his lawyer to the police station.

The PEMA Secretariat lodged the case with the Trongsa police on July 9 after the mother brought her 16-year-old daughter for treatment.

The mother claimed that the MP molested her daughter two years back when he worked as gewog administration officer of Nubi gewog.

In an earlier interview with Kuensel, the girl’s mother said that the MP had gone inside her house and grabbed her left breast. That time, the mother had gone to collect mushrooms with her friends.

The girl’s family was living in a small house owned by the MP’s elder brother, next to the MP’s house. 

In an earlier interview with Kuensel, the MP denied the allegations. He said that during the time of the incident, he was cleaning the drain outside the house and had gone inside the girl’s house to ask for a hard broom. When he found the girl sleeping with the blanket covered, he pulled the blanket and that’s when he accidentally touched the girl.

Sources told Kuensel that the issue was resolved internally then.

The mother said that the MP gave her daughter a laptop. The MP however told Kuensel that he had given an old laptop to the girl’s family but it had nothing to do with the incident. He said that he also used to give clothes and other items to the family. 

The mother and the daughter visited the PEMA Secretariat recently for treatment as the daughter was unwell and had recounted this incident.

Dechen Dolkar

After a lull caused by delays in completing two mega hydropower projects – Punatshangchhu-I and Punatshangchhu-II – and the deferral of the Kholongchhu hydropower project, the government is back to pursuing the country’s hydropower dream.

The government plans to kick start construction of 10 large hydropower projects in the 13th Plan. And if everything pans out as planned, Bhutan will generate more than 10,000MW of electricity once these large hydropower projects are commissioned.

Over the next five years, the government plans to increase the installed capacity of hydropower generation by 3,119 MW, bringing the total installed capacity to approximately 5,500 MW. For this initiative, the government has allocated a budget of Nu 527 billion, outside the 13th Plan.

The 10 large hydropower projects include 404MW Nyera Amari, 600MW Kholongchu, 1,125MW Dorjilung, 180MW Bunakha, 900MW Wangchhu, 363MW Khomachhu, 170MW Dangchhu, 770MW Chamkharchhu-I, 2,585MW/4,060MW Sankosh, and 2,800MW Kuri-Gongri.

Of these 10 new hydropower projects planned in the 13th Plan, the 1,125MW Dorjilung and 180MW Bunakha storage scheme projects will be executed first.

According to the Druk Green Power Corporation (DGPC), the Detailed Project Reports (DPR) for the Dorjilung and Bunakha projects are currently being updated. The modality of these projects will be discussed soon. The national budget report for Financial Year 2024-25 states that for the 1,125MW Dorjilung hydropower project, the World Bank has been requested to lead the financing consortium. This project is expected to start by October next year and be completed by October 2031.

For the 180MW Bunakha hydropower project, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has been requested to lead the financing consortium. This project is expected to start by February 2026 and be completed by February 2032.

A DGPC official said that DPRs of some of the planned hydropower projects are in various stages of development. “Some DPRs are being undertaken, some are being updated, and others are under review,” he said.

According to the budget report for FY 2024-25, Kholongchhu hydropower project will be executed by September this year, Nyera Amari by October 2026, Wangchhu by April 2027, Chamkharchhu by October 2026, and Sankosh by December 2026.

Currently, the DGPC is working with several overseas financial institutions and strategic partners, exploring various financing options for the hydropower projects. “When the DPR is ready, the modality of each project will be discussed with strategic partners,” the DGPC official said.

In the 13th Plan, Nu 1.5 billion has been allocated for the power sector.

The government has also prioritised the completion of the 1,200MW Punatsangchhu-I and 1,020MW Punatsangchhu-II hydropower projects.

While the Punatsangchhu-II hydropower project is expected to be operational by August this year, the Technical Coordination Committee will meet in New Delhi, India next month to take a final call on the construction of the dam on the right side of the Punatshangchhu-I dam site.    

༉ ཕྱི་འབྲེལ་དང་ཕྱིར་ཚོང་ལྷན་ཁག་གིས་ བཤད་མི་དང་འཁྲིལཝ་ད་ ཁ་ཙ་ འབྲུག་པའི་སློབ་ཕྲུག་༩ ཅི་ཊ་གོང་ལས་ འབྲུག་ལུ་ལྷོད་ཡོདཔ་ད་ དེ་ཡང་ ཅི་ཊ་གོང་-ཀཱོལ་ཀ་ཊ་-བག་ཌོ་ར་བརྒྱུད་དེ་ ཕུན་ཚོགས་གླིང་ལུ་ འོངས་ཡོདཔ་ད་ བང་ལ་དེཤ་ལུ་ལུས་མི་ འབྲུག་པའི་སློབ་ཕྲུག་ཚུ་ ཁོང་རའི་ མཐོ་རིམ་སློབ་གྲྭ་ཚུ་ནང་ ཉེན་སྲུང་དང་ལྡནམ་སྦེ་ཡོད་ཟེར་ཨིན་པས།
ཌ་ཀ་ལུ་ཡོད་མི་ འབྲུག་གི་ གཞུང་ཚབ་ལས་ཁང་གིས་ སློབ་ཕྲུག་ཚུ་ ཆ་མཉམ་ར་ དུས་དང་དུས་སུ་ ལྟ་རྟོག་འབད་བཞིན་དུ་ཡོདཔ་ཨིན་པས།
ད་རིས་ལས་འགོ་བཙུགས་ བང་ལ་དེཤི་ལུ་ དྲོ་པའི་ཆུ་ཚོད་༡༠ལས་ ཕྱི་རུའི་ཆུ་ཚོད་༥ ཚུན་ འགྲོ་འགྲུལ་བཀག་དམ་འབད་མི་དེ་ ཡངས་ཆག་བཏང་ཡོདཔ་བཞིན་དུ་ གཞུང་གི་ ཡིག་ཚང་ཚུ་ཡང་ དྲོ་པའི་ཆུ་ཚོད་༡༡ ལས་ ཉིན་མའི་ཆུ་ཚོད་༣ ཚུན་ ལོག་སྒོ་ཕྱེས་ཡོདཔ་ཨིན་པས།
ཕྱི་འབྲེལ་དང་ཕྱིར་ཚོང་ལྷན་ཁག་གི་ བློན་པོ་ཌི་ཨེན་ དུང་གེལ་གྱིས་ སྤྱི་ཟླ་༧ པའི་ཚེས་༢༣ ལུ་ འབྲུག་ལུ་ཡོད་མི་ བང་ལ་དེཤི་གི་ གཞུང་ཚབ་དང་གཅིག་ཁར་ བང་ལ་དེཤི་གི་ གནས་སྟངས་སྐོར་ལས་ གསུང་གྲོས་གནང་ཡོདཔ་ཨིན་པས།
བློན་པོ་གིས་ བང་ལ་དེཤི་གཞུང་ལུ་ བུ་རི་མ་རི་ རྒྱ་གར་དང་ བང་ལ་དེཤི་གི་ས་མཚམས་ཁར་ འབྲུག་པའི་སྣུམ་འཁོར་ཊཱག་༣༠༠ཐོགས་ལུས་མི་ཚུ་ ལོག་འབྲུག་ལུ་ གཏང་དགོ་པའི་ ཞུ་བ་འབད་མི་དང་བསྟུན་ ཁ་ཙ་ཕྱི་རུ་ལས་ འབྲུག་པའི་ སྣུམ་འཁོར་ཊཱག་ཚུ་ འབྲུག་ལུ་ ལོག་འགྱོ་ཆོག་པའི་ གནང་བ་བྱིན་ཡོད་པའི་གནས་ཚུལ།

བཙན་སྐྱོགས་དབང་འདུས།

༉ སྤུ་ན་གཙང་ཆུ་དང་པ་དང་ སྤུ་ན་གཙང་ཆུ་༢ པའི་ ཆུར་བརྟན་གློག་མེ་ལས་འགུལ་ཆེ་བ་༢ མཇུག་བསྡུ་ནི་ལུ་ ཡུན་འགྱངས་ལུས་མི་དང་ མཁོ་ལོང་ཆུ་གློག་མེ་ལས་འགུལ་ ཕར་བཤུད་རྐྱབ་པའི་ཤུལ་ལས་ ཁུ་སིམ་སི་སྦེ་ལུས་ཡོདཔ་ཨིན་རུང་ གཞུང་གིས་ རྒྱལ་ཁབ་ཀྱི་ ཆུར་བརྟེན་གློག་མེའི་ རེ་འདོད་འགྲུབ་ནིའི་དོན་ལུ་ ལོག་སྟེ་ར་ འཕྲོ་མཐུད་ལག་ལེན་འཐབ་ནི་ཨིན་པས།
གཞུང་གིས་ འཆར་གཞི་༡༣ པའི་ནང་ གློག་མེ་ལས་འགུལ་ཆེ་བ་༡༠བཟོ་སྐྲུན་འབད་ནིའི་འཆར་གཞི་ཡོདཔ་ད་ འཆར་གཞི་དང་འཁྲིལ་ཏེ་འགྱོ་བ་ཅིན་ གློག་མེ་ལས་འགུལ་ཆེ་བ་ཚུ་གི་ ལག་ལེན་འགོ་བཙུགས་པའི་བསྒང་ལས་ འབྲུག་གིས་ གློག་མེའི་ནུས་ཤུགས་ མེ་ག་ཝཱཊ་༡༠,༠༠༠ལྷགཔ་ཅིག་ ཐོན་སྐྱེད་འབད་ཚུགས་ནི་ཨིན་པས།
ཤུལ་མའི་ལོ་༥ འི་རིང་ གཞུང་གིས་ ནུས་ཤུགས་མེ་ག་ཝཱཊ་༡༠,༠༠༠ཐོན་སྐྱེད་འབད་ནིའི་ འཆར་གཞི་ཡོདཔ་ལས་ ཡོངས་བསྡོམས་ཧ་ལམ་ མེ་ག་ཝཱཊ་༥,༥༠༠ཐོན་སྐྱེད་འབད་ནི་ཨིནམ་ད་ གསར་བཏོད་འདི་གི་དོན་ལུ་ གཞུང་གིས་ འཆར་གཞི་༡༣ པའི་ཕྱི་ཁར་ འཆར་དངུལ་ དངུལ་ཀྲམ་ཐེར་འབུམ་༥༢༧ བགོ་བཀྲམ་འབད་ཡོདཔ་ཨིན་པས།
གློག་མེ་ལས་འགུལ་ཆེ་བ་༡༠གྱི་གྲངས་སུ་ མེ་ག་ཝཱཊ་༤༠༤ འབད་མི་ ཉེ་ར་ཨ་མ་རི་ཆུ་དང་ མེ་ག་ཝཱཊ་༦༠༠འབད་མི་ མཁོ་ལོང་ཆུ་ མེ་ག་ཝཱཊ་༡,༡༢༥ འབད་མི་ རྡོ་རྗེ་ལུང་ མེ་ག་ཝཱཊ་༡༨༠འབད་མི་ བུ་ན་ཁ་ མེ་ག་ཝཱཊ་༩༠༠འབད་མི་ ཝང་ཆུ་ མེ་ག་ཝཱཊ་༣༦༣ འབད་མི་ མཁོ་མ་ཆུ་ མེ་ག་ཝཱཊ་༡༧༠འབད་མི་ དྭངས་ཆུ་ མེ་ག་ཝཱཊ་༧༧༠འབད་མི་ ལྕམ་མཁར་ཆུ་དང་པ་ མེ་ག་ཝཱཊ་༢,༥༨༥/༤,༠༦༠འབད་མི་ སཱུན་ཀོཤ་ དེ་ལས་ མེ་ག་ཝཱཊ་༢,༨༠༠འབད་མི་ ཀུར་རི་གོང་རི་ཨིན་པས།
འཆར་གཞི་༡༣ པའི་ནང་ འཆར་གཞི་བཟོ་སྟེ་ཡོད་མི་ གློག་མེ་ལས་འགུལ་ཆེ་བ་༡༠གྱི་གྲས་ལས་ མེ་ག་ཝཱཊ་༡,༡༢༥ འབད་མི་ རྡོ་རྗེ་ལུང་དང་ མེ་ག་ཝཱཊ་༡༨༠འབད་མི་ བུ་ན་ཁ་གློག་མེ་ལས་འགུལ་དེ་ འགོ་དང་པ་ བཟོ་སྐྲུན་འབད་ནི་ཨིན་པས།
འབྲུག་སྔོ་ལྗང་གློག་མེ་ལས་འགུལ་གྱིས་ བཤད་མི་དང་འཁྲིལཝ་ད་ རྡོ་རྗེ་ལུང་དང་ བུ་ན་ཁ་གློག་མེ་ལས་འགུལ་གྱི་དོན་ལུ་ ལས་འགུལ་གྱི་ ཁ་གསལ་སྙན་ཞུ་ཚུ་ ད་ལྟོ་ དུས་མཐུན་བཟོ་ཚར་ཏེ་ཡོདཔ་བཞིན་དུ་ ལས་འགུལ་གྱི་བྱ་རིམ་ཚུ་ འཕྲལ་མགྱོགས་ར་ གྲོས་བསྟུན་འབད་ནི་ཨིན་པས།
རྩིས་ལོ་༢༠༢༤ དང་༢༠༢༥ ལོའི་ རྒྱལ་ཡོངས་འཆར་དངུལ་སྙན་ཞུ་ནང་ མེ་ག་ཝཱཊ་༡,༡༢༥ འབད་མི་ རྡོ་རྗེ་ལུང་གློག་མེ་ལས་འགུལ་གྱི་ མ་དངུལ་དོན་ལས་ འཛམ་གླིང་དངུལ་ཁང་ལུ་ ཞུ་བ་འབད་དེ་ཡོདཔ་ད་ ལས་འགུལ་དེ་ སང་ཕོད་སྤྱི་ཟླ་༡༠པའི་ནང་ འགོ་བཙུགས་ཚུགས་པའི་རེ་བ་ཡོདཔ་བཞིན་དུ་ སྤྱི་ལོ་༢༠༣༡ ཟླ་༡༠པའི་ནང་ མཇུག་བསྡུ་ནི་ཨིན་པས།
མེ་ག་ཝཱཊ་༡༨༠འབད་མི་ བུ་ན་ཁ་གློག་མེ་ལས་འགུལ་གྱི་དོན་ལུ་ འཛམ་གླིང་དངུལ་ཁང་གོང་འཕེལ་ལུ་ ཞུ་བ་འབད་དེ་ཡོདཔ་ད་ ལས་འགུལ་དེ་ སྤྱི་ལོ་༢༠༢༦ ཟླ་༢ པའི་ནང་ འགོ་བཙུགས་ཚུགས་པའི་རེ་བ་ཡོདཔ་བཞིན་དུ་ སྤྱི་ལོ་༢༠༣༢ ཟླ་༢ པའི་ནང་ མཇུག་བསྡུ་ནི་ཨིན་པས།
འབྲུག་སྔོ་ལྗང་གློག་མེ་ལས་འགུལ་གྱི་ འགོ་དཔོན་ཅིག་གིས་ སླབ་མིའི་ནང་ འཆར་གཞི་ནང་ཚུད་དེ་ཡོད་མི་ གློག་མེ་ལས་འགུལ་ལ་ལོ་ཅིག་གི་ ཁ་གསལ་སྙན་ཞུ་ཚུ་ ད་ལྟོ་ གནས་རིམ་སྣ་ཚོགས་ཀྱི་ཐོག་ལུ་ བཟོ་བའི་བསྒང་ཡོདཔ་ད་ དེ་ཡང་ ལ་ལོ་ཅིག་ ངོས་ལེན་འབད་དེ་ཡོདཔ་ད་ ལ་ལོ་ཅིག་ དུས་མཐུན་འབད་བའི་བསྒང་ཡོདཔ་བཞིན་དུ་ གཞན་མི་ཚུ་ བསྐྱར་ཞིབ་འབད་དོ་ཡོདཔ་ཨིན་པས།
འཆར་གཞི་༡༣ པའི་ནང་ དངུལ་ཀྲམ་ཐེར་འབུམ་༡.༥ གློག་མེ་ལས་སྡེའི་དོན་ལུ་ བགོ་བཀྲམ་འབད་ཡོདཔ་ཨིན་པས།
སྤུ་ན་གཙང་ཆུ་གློག་མེ་ལས་འགུལ་༢ པ་དེ་ དུས་ཅི་ སྤྱི་ཟླ་༨ པའི་ནང་ ལག་ལེན་འཐབ་ཚུགས་པའི་ རེ་བ་ཡོདཔ་ད་ ཐབས་རིག་མཉམ་འབྲེལ་ཚོགས་ཆུང་གིས་ སྤུ་ན་གཙང་ཆུ་དང་པའི་ ཆུ་བཀག་ར་ས་ཁོངས་ཀྱི་ གཡས་ཁ་ཐུག་ལུ་ ཆུ་བཀག་ར་བཟོ་སྐྲུན་འབད་ནིའི་དོན་ལས་ ཤུལ་མའི་ཟླཝ་ནང་ རྒྱ་གར་ནིའུ་ལྡི་ལི་ལུ་སྦེ་ མཐའ་དཔྱད་གསུང་གྲོས་གནང་ནི་ཨིན་པའི་གནས་ཚུལ།

བཙན་སྐྱོགས་དབང་འདུས།