The provincial executive of Province 3 has plans to construct at least one ‘peace park’ in each local unit of the province.

Shalikram Jammakattel, provincial minister for internal affairs and law, said the ‘peace park’ would be constructed in memory of martyr/s who had sacrificed their lives for the country.

The provincial government had announced the peace park construction last fiscal year (2018/19), by selecting four local units to carry out the project. And as per plan, the local units had initiated the construction of their peace parks last year and construction work is ongoing. This fiscal year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Law has selected another 30 local units to construct parks.

By the end of fiscal year 2021/22, the Province 3 government has announced—in its policy and programme—that it will construct ‘peace parks’ in all 119 local bodies.

However, problems have already risen. “The peace parks will be constructed in public land. But the provincial government does not have such public land for the purpose,” said Jammakattel. “The forest offices own public land. We face problems due to the lack of coordination with the forest authorities.”

“Discussions are being held with the forest authority and the local unit to resolve the problem of land for the park construction. We will move forward by including the construction of peace park in the annual policy and programme of the community forests,” he added.

According to Jammakattel, the peace park will be constructed jointly by the ministry and the local units. He said the ministry would provide up to 30 percent of the budget to the metropolitan and sub-metropolitan cities, 40 percent to the municipalities and 50 percent to the rural municipalities.

The ministry has allocated Rs 100 million budget for the park construction this year. Last fiscal year, Rs 20 million had been allocated for the same, but Rs 14 million, according to the ministry, had been frozen last year.

“This year, we will fully utilise the allocated sum. The budget was frozen owing to a shortage of employees and some technical issues last year,” said the minister.

To construct the parks, the ministry has also prepared working guidelines and standards for park construction. “We have prepared the Peace Park Construction Regulation and Standard 2076 BS, where it has been mentioned that the local units should have their own land for the park construction. If the local bodies do not have land then they should coordinate with the local community forests for it,” said Bir Bahadur Singh, the secretary at the ministry.

As per the standard prepared by the ministry, the parks must be constructed in at least 30 ropanies of land and should have at least three halls to hold gatherings.