The Ministry of Physical Planning and Works has stated that the politically popular housing programme for marginalised and poor people could not be implemented effectively in Kapilvastu district as a result of political interference. Out of the targeted 1,000 units, only 426 are under construction.

Under the People’s Housing Programme launched by the government in the last fiscal year targeting three districts—Kapilvastu, Saptari and Siraha—progress has been good in Saptari with 1,000 houses completed while 846 houses are under construction in Siraha.

“We could not perform well in Kapilvastu because building houses for the poor became politicised obstructing the programme,” said a high level official at the ministry. The official added that issues such as poor people living on encroached land and their scattered settlements had also made implementation difficult. The government budget last year had targeted to build 3,000 houses with an investment of Rs 300 million for people belonging to the Dom, Musahar, Chamar, Dusadh and Khatwey communities of the three districts. The budget for the current fiscal year has expanded the programme to the Chepang, Raute and Kusunda communities with an allocation of Rs 395 million.

“We have already forwarded a programme proposal to the National Planning Commission to build houses for the Chepang, Raute and Kusunda communities,” said Shiva Hari Sharma, deputy general manager of the Department of Urban Development and Building Construction and member secretary of the Central Direction Committee of the People’s Housing Programme. “The cost and the design of the houses will also be finalised within a few weeks.”

Following complaints of irregularities over awarding contracts and selecting beneficiaries, a sub-committee formed by the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) had also conducted a study. The report said that the District Coordination Committees had carried out work on housing without going through the proper selection process of the target groups. “There are cases in Kapilvastu, Saptari and Siraha where four people from the same family have been selected as beneficiaries,” states the report.

According to the data of the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works, a total of Rs 273.8 million has been spent on this programme. Of the Rs 273.8 million, Rs 151 million has been spent in Saptari, Rs 78.2 million in Siraha and Rs 44.6 million in Kapilvastu.

The report released last Monday said that the much talked about housing programme was slow and unsatisfactory, particularly in Kapilvastu. Most of the houses have been constructed on encroached forest land and without managing drinking water, road and toilets. In Kapilvastu, some of the houses that had been built were against the approved design, says the report.

“We did not know that they were living on encroached land. Construction on such controversial land has been stopped,” said Sharma. He added that in some places, the houses could have been different from the approved design because of the small pieces of land owned by the beneficiaries.

Secretary at the Ministry of Finance Rameshwor KhanaL who visited the areas recently said that the programme had benefited marginalised communities immensely by empowering them. The ministry has also ranked the programme as one of the well performing projects of the last fiscal year.

Regarding the sanitation programme, Khanal said, “The engineers designed the houses without toilets to reduce the cost of housing, and we have told them to include sanitation facilities too in the designs to be constructed now.”

The programme had completed building almost all the 1,000 houses within two months in Saptari following full cooperation from the coordinator of the District Coordination Committee. However, according to the ministry official, the district coordinator of Kapilvastu had not worked well, and even threatened the engineers involved in the programme. “If the problems, especially from the political parties, do not end, it will be hard to continue the programme in Kapilvastu,” said the official. “Our engineers have also been threatened by the Tarai Janatantrik Mukti Morcha for money from the programme.”

In the current fiscal year, the government has set a target to build 574 houses in Kapilvastu giving continuity to the housing programme. The government has set a target to build a total of 1,942 houses in Saptari, Siraha, Kapilvastu, Dadeldhura and Doti (for Rautes), in Makwanpur and Chitwan (for Chepangs), and in Ramechhap and Pyuthan (for Kusundas).

source:Shrestha, Ramesh(2011),"Political meddling hinders Kapilvastu housing project",The Kathmandu Post,4 feb 2011