Kathmandu, Feb. 13:Hundreds of employees of the Timber Corporation of Nepal had a long struggle demanding their transfer to the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation, but are jobless after the change of protocol.

The Ministry has failed to give any work to about 900 employees, who were formerly under the Ministry of Supplies, say the TCN workers, some of whom await the announcement: TCN has been dissolved.

“The Corporation is in a miserable state,” says TCN’s General Manager Ambika Prasad Rijal. And the staff have no work to do. “The Ministry has not given us any work even after the passage of five months of the Corporation’s transfer of protocol,” says Rijal. “The employees are in total confusion due to the absence of a clear-cut policy.”

The ninth five-year plan has assigned TCN to sell timber and firewood, says Rijal. The concerned authorities have failed to give TCN its work despite the government taking various decisions and issuing directions, he adds.

The Corporation was moved into the Forest Ministry as its resources came from forest. However, TCN’s employees are facing problems as they have not been assigned any work, said the union president Yogendra Bijaya Dahal.

The problem persists because the government’s decision that TCN should deal in timber and firewood has not come into force. This work is still being done by the District Forest Offices. The Supply Committee has interfered in TCN’s work, he said. TCN’s situation would improve provided the government took right decision, he added.

Forest Ministry’s Secretary Rabi Bahadur Bista however said that TCN was in a miserable situation as the employees were involved more in politics than work.

He expressed doubts over the improvement of the Corporation where the employees ‘involved themselves in party politics’. Bista said that TCN had 1.1 million metric tonne of firewood, which would suffice for four years adding the government would not forward work at the cost of national parks.

The Corporation has reached in such a situation that there is a slim possibility of reviving the Corporation. The government has constituted a commission headed by Ministry’s Joint Secretary Sushil Bhattarai to study on the Corporation’s viability, which has already started its work.

The donor agencies have put conditions that TCN should sustain itself in competition with the private sector but the Corporation, according to Bhattarai, is not in a situation to compete.

Rijal said that the Corporation would not be able to compete with the private sector as it should operate according to the rules and regulations of the government.

Bhattarai said that political interference was the main cause, which has left the Corporation in a precarious situation. Besides, he accused the high-ranking officials of serving their own interests rather than that of the institution that was established four decades ago and recommended for the proper use of the Corporation’s assets to improve its situation.

President of the employees union Dahal is also positive about any decision of the government to put the Corporation’s assets to a better use. Besides, golden handshake package for the employees would help reduce the financial burden of the Corporation.