Ratnanagar Municipality with support from Lumanti Support Group for Shelter and UN Habitat organized a Project Inception Meeting cum Tri party Agreement Program on 21st December 2018, Friday.

 

The project inception meeting was jointly inaugurated by the Chief Guest of the meeting Mr P.S. Joshi, Habitat Program Manager of UN Habitat and the Chairperson of the meeting Mr Narayan Ban, Mayor of the Ratnanagar Municipality. 

 

On the same occasion, as the symbolic launching of the project, Habitat Program Manager of UN Habitat Mr Joshi, Mayor of Ratnanagar Municipality Mr Ban and General Secretary of Lumanti Support Group for Shelter Ms Anita Manandhar signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

 

Delivering his inaugural remarks Chief Guest of the inception meeting, Habitat Program Manager of UN Habitat Mr Joshi expressed his happiness for the opportunity to work together with Ratnanagar Municipality and Lumanti. Talking about the development of the city he said, construction and renovation of physical infrastructures like road, drainage, water and sanitation infrastructures etc are generally considered as the development but the issue of land which is the fundamental element of development is generally overlooked. He added, while talking about the issue of land, the information related to land and the inhabitants is the key element for planning. Without the proper information about the issue of land, development of the city including improvement in infrastructure is challenging. He further added, this MInTIS project with support from UN Habitat and Lumanti is the pilot project in Ratnanagar which will definitely support for the effecting documentation of the detail information related to land and the inhabitants enabling to ease the development planning for the municipality.

 

During the program, Land and GLTN Coordinator of UN Habitat Mr Rajaram Chhatkuli presenting his  technical presentation, briefly talked about new land policy in Nepal and highlighted the key features. On his presentation, highlighting the objective of the survey he said, the key goal of the survey is to identify the informal tenure holders of Ratnanagar Municipality, verify and document it by applying the STDM tools to improve the tenure security in the city for the effective municipal land management. He also stressed the essentiality of factual information during the survey and highlighted the roles and responsibilities of municipality, Lumanti, UN Habitat and community as well.

 

On the open floor discussion, the representatives of the community federation appreciated the initiation from the municipality for the effective land management and stressed the need of participation from the community during the survey. Likewise, the elected ward representatives from different wards featuring the issues related to increasing inhabitants in the public and government land, expressed their suggestions while developing the questionnaires.

 

Concluding the meeting agreement signing program, Chairperson of the program Mr Narayan Ban,  Mayor of the Ratnanagar Municipality expressed the words of gratitude to UN Habitat and Lumanti for the support to implement the MInTIS project. On his remarks, he stated, the municipality has initiated for the informal settlement management and started housing the poor families. This MInTis project with support from UN Habitat and Lumanti will surely added value on the municipal planning. Furthermore, with the information from this project, I believe the municipality can develop effective and efficient plan for the effective implementation of the development programs, he added. 

 

Around 40 participants representing different wards of Ratnanagar Municipality, representatives from community federation, women cooperatives, youth groups and media participated in the meeting.