The Bagmati provincial government plans to build homes for 1,000 families without adequate housing, allocating Rs400 million for the programme in the current fiscal year.

The government has set aside Rs400,000 for each house and said the scheme will prioritise Chepang families who lack proper shelter.

Chief Minister Kiran Thapa Magar said the provincial government was committed to improving the living conditions of the marginalised Chepang community, which has long remained on the fringes of mainstream development. He made the remarks during an inspection of a settlement of poor Chepang families in Polaghari, ward 6 of Manahari Rural Municipality in Makawanpur district.

Handing over three houses built by the CPN-UML’s Manahari rural municipality committee to families without proper shelter, Thapa said the provincial government would provide the necessary budget to build safe homes for other disadvantaged families as well.

He directed local representatives and officials accompanying him to immediately compile a detailed list of all families in the settlement who lack adequate housing. He also said warm clothes would be distributed to residents as temperatures drop with the onset of winter.

“Our commitment is to ensure that no one suffers from the cold due to a lack of warm clothing, that no one remains homeless and that no one is forced to go abroad simply to earn a living during our tenure,” Thapa said. “We will launch a special programme to distribute young goats and chicks to help the marginalised Chepang community build sustainable sources of income.”

Urging recipients not to slaughter the goats provided under the scheme, he said they should raise them commercially.

The three houses, each built at a cost of around Rs300,000 by the UML’s Manahari committee, were handed over to Man Bahadur Chepang, Rabilal Chepang and Surya Chepang at a ceremony on Thursday. Each house has two rooms.

The families had been living in brushwood huts due to the lack of proper housing.

Under the federal government’s People’s Housing Programme, around 800 Chepang families in Makawanpur have already received homes built with support from the federal and provincial governments.