Friday, June 17, 2005

National Urban Policy in the offing

Razen Manandhar
Kathmandu, June 16:

The government will soon come up with a policy to regulate the
sprawling urban development.
"The draft of the National Urban Policy
(NUP) 2062 is almost ready. We will start discussing it soon," Dr
Mahendra Subba, senior divisional engineer at the Department of
Housing and Urban Development (DHUD), said today.
The policy will
help achieve a "National Urban Framework" and contribute to poverty
reduction and sustainable development by improving relations between
the urban and rural areas. According to the yet unpublished draft of
the policy, North-South Corridors to connect the Himalayan and Terai
regions will be developed. It also targets setting up of Regional
Urban Centres at each development region.

The policy seeks to formulate separate laws for urban land
development and impose extra tax on large open areas in the cities.
Among other things, it also seeks to develop relations with
municipalities and the Town Development Committees.
It further plans
to promote public transportation system with the use of electrical
vehicles and improve road network in cities. The government will
start levying Development Fees, Integrated Property Tax, Tax
Incremental Financing and Municipal Bo-nds to generate funds for the
programmes planned.