Nepal Association of Rafting Agency (Nara), in association with the Nepal Tourism Board and District Development Committee of Dhading, organised a campaign to clean up the Trishuli river on Monday.

Over 250 participants, including tourism entrepreneurs, tourist guides, members of local clubs, Armed Police Force personnel and locals, took part in the campaign during which over 30 sacks of solid waste from the 18-kilometre stretch between Fishling and Kuranighat in Chitwan district was collected.  

A total of 30 boats were used to clean the river as the campaigners collected empty noodles packets, plastic bottles, beer bottles and plastics among other wastes from the riverbanks.

This was the fourth edition of the river cleaning campaign.

“Drawing inspiration from the Bagmati Clean-up Campaign we thought of launching this drive to clean the Trishuli river,” said Shekhar Bahadur Thapa, general manager of Nara. “We were also associated with the Bagmati Clean-up Campaign in the initial phase.”

Thapa said Nara was also planning to clean the Bhote Koshi river next month.  

Trishuli is Nepal’s most popular rafting river and offer beautiful scenery and relatively peaceful environment. Flow of both domestic and international tourists has increased in recent times due to which the river is also getting polluted rapidly.

It is estimated that 5,000 people have directly got job opportunities in the rafting industry.

30 boats are used to collect empty noodles packets and beer bottles, among other wastes, from the riverbanks.