Difficulty finding a suitable plot to construct the prison has hindered works

Kavre, July 21

The budget allocated for the construction of a proposed prison house in Kavre has been frozen yet again after construction work failed to begin even after three years, thanks to the unavailability a suitable land to develop the structure.

According to Jailer Mahesh Kumar Pokharel of Kavre, the prison administration has been searching for a plot suitable to develop the prison facility since 2013/14.

“Without suitable land, construction cannot begin, and the budget allocated for the facility got frozen and was reallocated every year for the past three years,” he said.

Further, Pokharel blamed the apathy of local forest committees and political parties for the problem.

“For the past few years, we’ve considered a number of sites that could be suitable for the construction of a prison structure, but concerned forest committees and political parties have done nothing to help us acquire the site,” he said.

As per the government standard, the newly constructed prison house is required to be inmate-friendly, and be equipped with separate male and female cells, have functional latrines, and a sports ground.

In the fiscal of 2015/16, the government had allocated Rs 5 million for the construction.

Earlier, though a tender had been called for prison construction in the 2013/14, it was later scrapped owing to inadequate area on the site for prison construction.