Kathmandu, January 13

The Office of Kathmandu Metropolitan City has announced its plan to introduce Urban Regeneration Programme through its fiscal budget of 2016/17.

The regeneration programme will begin from Baidhya Chowk, Buddha Chowk and Kilagal Chowk in the core city areas.

The programme aims to beautify the areas that suffered heavily in the aftermath of last year’s April 25 and May 12 earthquakes that caused loss of lives and property.

According to KMC Chief Rudra Singh Tamang, a budget of Rs 30 million has been allocated for the programme.

Earlier, National Society for Earthquake Technology-Nepal had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with KMC to work together in the area of Disaster Risk Reduction in the core areas of Kathmandu, which fall under the high earthquake risk zone.

According to the MoU, the NSET team will provide technical assistance to KMC for the regeneration programme in line with the rules and regulations of reconstruction prescribed by the government.

According to NSET, URP is basically land redevelopment in moderate to high density urban areas to improve the city’s infrastructure, create more economic activities, transform old earthquake-vulnerable buildings into earthquake-resistant neighbourhoods, improve quality of life, preserve historic and architectural heritages, and ensure social inclusion and cohesion.

URP is taken as pre-disaster shelter planning (Urban Seismic Risk Management) of historic cities as well as post-disaster reconstruction planning. The purpose of urban regeneration is to take into consideration the complexity of urban dynamics.

KMC has also allocated a budget of Rs 200 million for reconstruction and conservation of earthquake-ravaged Kathmandu Durbar Square and other cultural heritages.

It has also decided to spend Rs 100 million for sewer lines, roads and street lights while giving continuity to the road expansion drive with a budget of Rs 400 million.