By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Dec. 1: Local administration has begun controlling the sale and consumption of meat, alcohol and other intoxicating items at the Pashupatinath area.

With joint initiative of ward office and community police, some shops of meat and alcohol have been removed from Sifal area of Kathmandu Metropolitan City-7.
The haphazardly opened alcohol shops have invited unnecessary squabbles among the alcoholics which creates an unholy atmosphere at the holy site.

Pashupati Area Development Trust (PADT) has been unable to control meat and alcoholic business at the protected area. Despite the order from the local administration to stop such shops in the area, the shop operators are not properly complying with it, said officer of District Administration Office (DAO).
Under the campaign to make Pashupati are meat- and alcohol-shop free zone, it has initiated to remove alcohol shops in the first phase.

Dr. Ghanshyam Khatiwada, executive director of PADT, said that the removal process of alcohol and meat shops is continuing and street beggars are also being removed from the area with the support of Manav Dharma Sewa Samiti.
The Samiti has changed the alcoholic behaviour of around 300 people. The sale of prohibited item has been going on at several alcohol and meat shops at the area, which spreads over from Tribhuvan International Airport to Sifal and form about the 20-metre area of Bagmati River to the Guheshwori Temple in the west.

Krishna Mani Bhattarai, member of Ward No.7, said that there are over 500 alcohol and meat shops running at the surroundings of Pashupati area.