The government is gearing up to revise the National Housing Policy 1996 so as to make housing facilities accessible to the urban poor and better manage the urbanisation process.

According to the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works, the revised policy will address problems experienced in land plotting, real estate, leasing property, rehabilitation of squatters or people affected by natural disasters and managing the urban poor.

The National Planning Commission (NPC) is likely to approve the proposed amendment to the policy soon. After the NPC nod, the proposal will be forwarded to the Cabinet for final approval.

“As people are experiencing several problems in managing these issues, we are coming with a revised policy to address them,” said Suresh Prakash Acharya, joint secretary at the ministry. The existing policy does not incorporate these issues as they are relatively new phenomenon in the country.

Demand for housing units has been growing with the rise in population. Two decades ago, the country’s population was at 18.4 million, but now, it has reached 26.6 million, according to a preliminary report of the National Census 2011. Mainly, cities are getting more unmanageable because of international migration and lack of proper housing facilities in accordance with the increasing number of urban poor.

Recently, the ministry had held discussions with NPC on the policy revision. “The policy will be revised soon as necessary consultations with NPC have already been completed,” said Acharya, joint secretary at the ministry.

The revised policy will also devise a mechanism to regulate land plotting and discourage haphazard plotting without ensuring proper road and drinking water facilities.

For the last ten years, there has been a significant rise in the number of housing and apartment projects, but such projects have failed to attract urban poor. “With the modification in the policy, the government will also be able to expand its ongoing People’s Housing programme,” said Acharya, adding that the new policy will come up with ideas of providing easy home loans to the urban poor.

Following the increase in migration to urban areas, the trend of living in rented houses has gone up. According to the National Census 1991, only 2 percent of the total population of 18.4 million lived in rented houses. The country had 3 million housing units then. But now, although the number of housing units has increased to 4.8 million, an estimated 8 percent of the total 26.6 million population lives in rented homes.

“Around 35 percent of the Kathmandu Valley’s population lives in rented homes,” said Achayra. According to the preliminary report of the National Census 2011, the Valley is home to 2.51 million people.

source: The Kathmandu Post, 10 Nov 2011