House panel passes Right to Shelter bill

Kathmandu, Sept. 12: The Development and Technology Committee (DTC) of the Parliament has passed the Bill of the Right to Shelter Act 2075 with clause-wide discussion on the bill.

The committee had formed a sub-committee led by Lawmaker Anil Kumar Jha to study the bill and asked it to submit the report to the DTC Chairman Jip Chhiring Lama.

The subcommittee has recommended that the bill should have an additional provision to provide housing facility to Nepali families that do not have any houses and or are incapable to build one with their income, resource and efforts.

It also asked to incorporate a provision to consider the family as a homeless if it loses their shelter in natural disaster.

The current bill has maintained that the Federal, Provincial and Local government should coordinate to provide shelter facilities to the homeless individual and families.

People that can manage to build their home if the resources were made available would be given financial support and the ultra-poor families and disabled people who can't built house even when the support is provided, would be given housing facility.

According to the bill, the local governments will collect the data of the families and individual that need housing support, provide identity cards which would be submitted to the provincial governments, and the government would initiate to build or provide the facility of shelters to those families.

The federal and provincial governments will extend economic and technical support to the local government in the process.

Each family that demands shelter facility from the government should declare that they do not have land or house anywhere in the country and explicitly mention that they are unable to build a house with their resources and efforts.

However, the families involved in income generation works would be provided with loan or partial grant for the house.

The bill has clear provisions for the rehabilitation and housing facility of the families affected by natural disasters and various development projects such as roads, railways and hydroelectricity.

Housing facility provided under the new law should be used by the respective families or group of families as directed by the government, however, the ownership of the house would be with the government.

Without the consent of the local, provincial or federal government, such property can't be used as the collateral for loan, sold, leased or rented out or transferred to any other individual.

Speaking at the DTC meeting on Wednesday, lawmakers demanded that if anyone does not come to stay in the house provided by the government within one year, they should be deprived of the facility.

Jha said that the ultimate ownership of the land or house must be with the government.

Gauri Shankar Chaudhary said that the people living in the areas that were flooded or inundated every year, or in the areas with landslide risks should also have certain facilities to live safely elsewhere.

Yagya Raj Sunuwar suggested that the all land in the country should come under the government management and people or business should only be allowed to use it.