Clean and beautiful city for urban development: PM Deuba

Lumbini / Aug. 27: Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has said the development of a clean and beautiful city could ensure well-managed urbanization. He argued Nepal was facing various sorts of disasters due to not having well-planned and managed cities.

PM Deuba was saying it amidst a programme organized to inaugurate an international conference centre built at Butwal Mandap of Butwal Submetropolis-10 today. The time has come for us to rebuild the old cities and manage the new ones. He mentioned that Butwal was making headway in urban development and believed that the establishment of the international conference centre would help promote socioeconomic and educational development. The government would set criteria for running the centre soon, he informed.

The PM further reminded that with the federalism in place, the construction of development infrastructures was gaining pace at the local and provincial levels, which he hoped, would augment the urbanization drive. He said, “Uncontrolled migration will be curbed if the modern urban development was reached to people’s settlements in rural areas.”

On the occasion, Home Minister Balkrishna Khand said the development in Butwal, the vicinity of Lumbini, would a lay foundation for the development of the entire country. The national economy would be benefitted from the development in Butwal, he argued.

He however admitted that although Gautam Buddha International Airport was brought into operation, it was yet to be run in a full-fledged way so that it could be developed as a dynamic economic hub. He shared the information that PM Deuba had requested his Indian counterpart to allow additional international air routes to the airport, he said, requesting the industrialists to formulate a plan for the multidimensional use of the conference centre so that it could be linked to the national economy.

He further informed that government would initiate construction of tunnel way at Daunne in this very fiscal year. The government was effortful to address the problems facing the landless squatters by providing them land ownership certificates via the land commission, according to Minister Khand.

Similarly, former Minister for Finance, Bishnu Poudel, said the development agenda was forwarded in Rupandehi.

Former minister for urban development, Ram Kumari Jhankri, suggested that the model of the operation of the international conference centre could be based on trade and income.

Vice Chairperson of the National Planning Commission, Dr Bishwonath Poudel, informed that the government would facilitate in preparation of the operation model of the conference centre. RSS