According to KMC Spokesperson Shanta Ram Pokharel, Dharahara was reopened for the public in 2061 BS as per a decision of the KMC board when Keshav Sthapit was mayor.
Sidewalkers, a private company, was given the contract for managing the historic site in return for a monthly revenue to KMC of Rs 60,000, Pokharel told Republica.
The annual income generated by the UNESCO World Heritage site in the initial years was Rs 720,000, which later rose to Rs 250,000 per month.
Figures provided by KMC shows that the board collected approximately Rs 5,040,000 in the first seven years while the total revenue collection in the last four years was about Rs 12,000,000.
"The decision to hand over the management of Dharahara to a private company raised some controversy back then," says Dr Shiva Rijal, a professor at the central department of English at Tribhuvan University and a researcher into traditional architecture and open spaces of Kathmandu.
Historian Tri Ratna Manandhar recalls that they used to have free access to Dharahara, but it was later banned to the public due to safety concerns.
"As far as I remember, we used to have free entry into Dharahara. The first time I visited the 19th century monument built by Bhimsen Thapa was in 2015 BS," Manandhar told Republica.
"Later, it developed some cracks and was closed to the public. But it was reopened years later after some repairs," he added.
But now entry tickets were required. The price for locals was Rs 50 while visitors from SAARC countries had to pay Rs 99 and other foreigners Rs 299.
But the greatest price that visitors paid was with their lives during the devastating 7.9 magnitude earthquake. There were reports that around 200 people had bought tickets to enter Dharahara, but the authorities there declined to comment while Sidewalker managing director Suraj Tuladhar was said to be out of the Valley.
According to SSP Narayan Singh Khadka, spokesperson at the Metropolitan Police Commissioner's Office, Ranipokhari, about 50 to 55 bodies were recovered from the ruins of Dharahara, while a few miraculously survived the collapse.
That makes Dharahara the single site with the biggest number of casualties inside Kathmandu city, according to police. The second largest toll at a single place was in the Swayambhu area where police recovered 32 bodies from the debris, says SSP Khadka.
While KMC and Sidewalkers made big bucks from the ancient monument, they have acted irresponsibly in not providing any compensation to the victim parties.
One of the survivors of the Dharahara mishap, Rup Chand Chaudhary, recounts the horror of April 25.
The 22-year-old was on a visit to Kathmandu from Itahari when his uncle Narahari Chaudhary decided to take him to Dharahara.
While the two were on the balcony, the tower started to swing all of a sudden. The younger Chaudhary held on to the inner pillar near the staircase when the tower fell, knocking him unconscious and killing his uncle on the spot.
"All I remember is police came and woke me up and took me to hospital," Chaduahry said from his bed at Janamaitri Hospital in Balaju where he is recuperating from injuries to his ribs.
"I didn't find anything interesting at Dharahara and had said to my uncle we should leave. But he insisted on lingering for a while and that was when the tragedy struck," he added.
Despite an assurance from the government of free treatment for earthquake victims, Chaudhary has been getting medical care on credit and has not received any support from the authorities, except for some free medicines from the hospital.
KMC Spokesperson Pokharel hinted that KMC has no intention of providing any extra support to the survivors or compensation to families of the deceased other than the relief package announced by the government, which the victims are yet to receive 13 days after the killer quake.
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