Kathmandu. An industrial village under the ‘One Municipality, One Industrial Village’ programme under construction at Pang of Kushma in Parbat district has remained in limbo for the past seven years. The Industrial Village Project initiated in 2076 BS at Pang of Kushma Municipality-1 has been in limbo due to budget crunch and legal hassles.

According to Kushma municipality, although the land required for the industrial village has been acquired and repaired, the construction of the access road has not moved ahead due to the paperwork related to the forest area, local consensus and administrative dilly-dally.

The municipality has said that although the construction work was started in February 2019 with the consent of the Nepane Community Forest Group of Ward No. 1 after completing the legal process including selection of consultant and calling for tender, the expected results could not be achieved due to various obstacles. The construction of the industrial village was halted in the initial phase after a complaint was filed at the Division Forest Office citing that trees were cut down while 180 ropanis of land was acquired for the construction of the industrial village.

According to Kushma municipality-1 chair Khagaraj Poudel, although the construction of industrial village was in the priority of the municipality, the project has been put on hold due to lack of coordination between the Ministry of Forest and Environment and the stakeholders. The local people’s representatives also said that the project has been stalled due to lack of coordination among the federal, province and municipality, dilly-dallying and various paperwork. The stakeholders have demanded the government to take effective initiatives at the earliest to remove the obstruction in the construction of industrial village.

Mayor of Kushma Municipality Ram Chandra Joshi said efforts were underway to give full shape to the under-construction industrial village and demanded budget from the federal and state governments. Clarifying that the ‘one municipality, one industrial village’ programme could not move ahead as per the expectation due to lack of necessary budget including the problem of forest, Mayor Joshi expressed the view that the project would be successful if the budget was allocated as per the demand.