Tikapur, January 12

The house of Prem Badi of Suryapur, Tikapur Municipality-8, Kailali district, has collapsed. Only the walls stick out from the wreckage of the house. Prem, along with all his family members, now lives in Bhatinda, India.

The families of Gauri Badi, Nirmal Badi and few other Badis from Suryapur also live in India. Kiran Badi lives in Chaumala of Kailali. Taradevi Badi lives in nearby Sati Bazar. Like Prem’s house, the houses of Gauri, Nirmal, Tara and Kiran are also in dilapidated condition as the houses have been abandoned for long.

All these houses were built under the government’s Janata Awas scheme. The government had built shelters for the people of the marginalised Badi and Raji communities in Kailali. However, the houses are in abandoned state.

Many houses built for the Badi community people are in a state of neglect as the people for whom the houses were built have migrated to India or other cities of Nepal in search of work.

There are 11 such houses in Suryapur, Tikapur Municipality-8. Some of these houses have collapsed while others are in a dilapidated condition.

The Badi households in Suryapur had divided whatever land holdings they had among the sons and parents after knowing that the government was constructing shelters for them and have built houses for themselves.

The government constructed houses for the Badi people, but they do not like the houses constructed under the Janata Awas Scheme. “If they had given us 10 dhurland instead of providing shelter, we would have built houses as per our choice,” said Kalchu Badi of Suryapur.

“Sub-standard material has been used while building the houses for us. We don’t feel safe staying in these houses,” said Shyama Badi of Suryapur.

Same is the condition of the shelters built for the Raji community under the programme at Jyotinagar, Tikapur Municipality-1. Of the 20 houses built in Jyotinagar, three houses have been abandoned.

Chief of the Urban Development and Building Construction Division Office, Dhangadi, Suresh Raj Wagle said 660 houses were constructed for the economically marginalised Badi, Raji and Muslim communities under the JanataAwas Programme in the last four years.