Parliamentary committee instructs for revising Building Guidance

The parliamentary Development and Technology Committee has instructed the government to amend the Town Development, Urban Planning and Building-related Basic Guidance-2016 after holding consultations with experts, urban planners and stakeholders.

In today's meeting, the Committee directed the Ministry of Urban Development to consider an amendment in the Guidance yet again.

The Guidance was introduced in 2016 and it was revised in 2021 lately.

The Committee's meeting today concluded that the revision in 2021 had further made the Guidance narrower and stated it was against the government's policy of building green, clean and safe cities ensuring balanced and proportionate development in those cities.

The Committee said that such Guidance should be proportionate to the geographical conduciveness to mountains, hills and Terai so as to protect the people in those geographical places from natural disasters in long term as well as for the construction of environment-friendly residences and settlements.

Minister for Urban Development Metmani Chaudhary assured that he will consult his team to correct weaknesses in the Guidance. He shared that many important and long pending under-formulation laws relating to urban development policy had been taken forward.

An important law related to this would be introduced within a week, he said.

Similarly, Ramesh Kumar Singh, Secretary at the Ministry of Urban Development, spoke of the need to build satellite cities in four corners of the Kathmandu Valley to reduce the higher density of cities like Kathmandu.

Committee's President Kalyani Kumari Khadka viewed the Guidance that ought to be very strict as lax instead. The Standards have devised post-Gorkha Earthquake in 2015.

She blamed that the current Guidance was in the interest of housing-related entrepreneurs and underscored the need to introduce Utility Corridor Act.

Member of the committee Jeep Tshering Lama opined that sparing a lot of pieces of a plot for open space while constructing houses could emerge as a problem, especially to those owning smaller pieces of land.

Another member Yagya Raj Sunuwar drew the attention of the government to the wanton expansion of human settlement in Kathmandu Valley and pressed for its proper management.

He urged newly appointed Minister Chaudhary to prevent policy corruption while assuming the leadership in the Ministry.

Member Rangamati Shahi condemned the act of building concrete jungles by cutting down paddy fields and forests.

The second amendment of Guidance was approved by the government and published in the gazette on May 30 this year.