After several failed attempts at rehabilitating beggars, the Kathmandu Metropolitan City has once again announced a plan to make Kathmandu a beggar-free city.

As the city office is preparing to celebrate its 25th anniversary on December 15, it is also planning to make Kathmandu free of beggars.

To this end, the city office on Tuesday issued a circular to all its ward offices, instructing them to work towards making the plan a success.

A meeting of the KMC executive on November 19 had decided to launch a programme of rescuing and rehabilitating the people who have been forced to beg to survive.

However, this is not the first time the authorities have come up with such a campaign.

The KMC had announced a beggar-free programme two years ago as well. Then, too, the plan was to collect beggars from the temple and tourist areas of Kathmandu and place them in homeless shelters. The city office had allocated Rs 30 million for the programme, which eventually failed.

Similarly, In April last year, the Pashupati Area Development Trust, in coordination with the Ministry of Culture, had announced that the area would soon be a beggar-free zone. The trust had unveiled a plan to relocate around 180 people from the temple area to a shelter home. The plan, however, failed to materialise as the shelter home was unable to accommodate all the people.

Basanta Acharya, communication officer at the KMC, says this time the city office is well-prepared to see the campaign through.

"We are collaborating with the Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens, the District Administration Office and the Nepal Police this time," Acharya told the Post.

He added there won't be any problems concerning the accommodation of rescued people, as the KMC will be using its office building in Balaju as a shelter home.

The authorities will start rescuing and rehabilitating the down-and-out people without any means of living and shelter from December 13.

According to Acharya, individuals who have families would be handed over to their concerned families while those without families would be taken to rehabilitation centres run by the state as well as non-governmental organisations.

"We decided to run beggar-free city campaign because we believe that no person should go hungry or die of hunger," said Ishwor Man Dangol, spokesperson for KMC.

"The city office has formed a task force to study the living condition of beggars around the city and to ascertain their population. The task force will also make recommendations to rehabilitate the rescued people."