From: www.sukulgunda.com
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Mr. Venom

According to our media folks, more than 700 folks have been bitten by venomous snakes in the country in the past two months, and 53 folks have lost their lives. The old school media paints it as a failure of this government, as usual, because all the mess in this country right now happened in the past four months.

Most of the media wallahs reporting on our snake incidents have failed to mention our former PM, Jhalanath Khanal. Jhallu Babu has his own foundation while still alive, and he received Rs 72 crores more than six years ago when his own comrades were in power to do some great work on getting us self-sufficient in anti-venom things. I don't know if that foundation is still doing its work or has used the funds for other purposes.

We have had our grand federalism natak for decades, and it seems that the provincial governments have not done much while squarely blaming the central government for all the problems, be it healthcare, education, employment, and all. In Nepal, the antidote is free of charge, but it seems that we have run out of stock or have limited stuff and can't provide it everywhere.

Folks are angry that the local health centers don't have the stuff. The provincial governments are angry at the Balen government because they don't have the stuff. And the media is angry as well because things were so fine and dandy in the past two decades that suddenly, everything is going wrong in this country since the young turks were voted to lead this country.

And the surprising thing is that thanks to global warming, even our hilly regions now get to witness venomous snakes traveling from our Terai plains for a quick vacation or bite. Maybe our King Cobras want to get away from the heat and cool themselves off in the mountains.

The government wants to bring down the snakebite deaths in half by 2030, and we hope it does work towards fulfilling its commitments. Right now, new supplies will indeed take weeks to arrive because we have to get them from across the border. Maybe this government can also audit the Jhalanath Khanal Foundation and ask what happened to the 70+ crores in funding back then.

If the Jhalnath Khanal Foundation had really used that money for snake venom and anti-venom production, then maybe they would have done us a big favor by using our taxpayers' money. The foundation had then planned to build a snake farm and anti-venom lab in Sarlahi so we could end our dependence on India for snakebite treatments.

The funding came not only from the central government but also from the provincial and municipal governments as well. Why did our media wallahs stay silent when the funding was provided to a personal foundation of another communist leader? The public was mad then, and even the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) filed corruption charges against some of the folks running the foundation for fake details and spending the funds illegally, but nothing came out of it.

I think the best thing to do now is to head across the border, buy the stuff needed, and have all our local health centers fully stocked with the antidote. This is a national emergency, and we cannot expect the victims to only pray to God or bite the snake in hopes of not losing their lives.