20,000 houses in 10 years, beneficiaries indifferent to housing facility
Rupandehi / Feb 11 : The government has accomplished the project of constructing 20,000 houses to the marginalized and poor community in 10 years, delaying nine years than the stipulated time.
Importantly, some of the houses are still unused. As the project of constructing 20,000 houses was not complete in a year, the project period was extended till date.
It witnessed hosts of problems. The project officers have admitted that the impractical work procedure was major reason behind such delay in project completion.
Currently, the National Planning Commission has been making internal assessment of the project at province level after the question over effectiveness of the project. During the meeting of the internal review, the stakeholders raised various questions over people’s housing programme.
At the review programme held at Butwal, it was blamed that the project failed to gain pace after it was handed over to province by the federal government. Now, the government could continue the project by establishing robust coordination among three-tier of government.
The houses constructed by the government failed to attract expected beneficiaries. The house each having two rooms was not designed in a manner friendly to the beneficiaries.
Vice Chairman of Federation of Contractors’ Association at Province, Nawaraj Shrestha, argued there was technical flaw in the construction of houses, which ultimately repelled the beneficiaries.
Similarly, sheer lack of budget and human resources at province government has badly delayed this project.
In the recent three years, the Lumbini Province was able to build only 3,428 houses. Although the construction of total 7,416 houses was approved in the fiscal year 2075/76BS, 3,988 houses are yet to be constructed.
Similarly, Rupandehi got 455 such houses while Kapilvastu 170, Arghakhanchi 114, Nawalparasi West 610, Banke 886, Bardiya 588, Palpa 82, Gulmi 186, Pyuthan 34, Rolpa 31 and Rukum East five houses in the last three years. RSS