Dhurba KC, who goes on a morning walk regularly, has had to negotiate a particularly inconvenient footpath section for the past one week. An array of tree saplings have emerged along the footpath leading to Dhobikhola bridge near Hanumansthan, Kathmandu, bothering pedestrians.

“The footpaths are already narrow,” KC, 43, who lives in Thapagaun, said. “The tree saplings make matters worse for pedestrians.”

KC said he now walks the motor road instead of the footpath, despite the danger posed by vehicles.

The saplings—that have caused huge inconvenience to pedestrians, especially porters, the elderly and those with disabilities—were planted a week ago by Kathmandu Valley Development Authority (KVDA), in coordination with ward offices of Kathmandu Metropolitan City and local clubs, according to officials at the ward 10 office of the City.

The plantation drive has so far laid down 200 Juniper and Neem saplings along various road sections of the Valley, including at Hanumansthan.

Naroj Aryal, a member of ward 10, said that he was present at the planting of saplings which, he said, was part of a “green drive”.

“But it’s not sustainable,” Aryal admitted, adding that several people have complained about it. “I also do not feel comfortable seeing seedlings being planted in the already narrow footpaths.”

Footpath sections from Ratopul to Kalopul and up to Bhatkekopul have also seen newly-planted tree saplings—a total of 130 saplings were planted in the area by the KVDA with financial assistance from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), according to Navaraj Pyakurel, spokesperson for the KVDA.

There are more saplings to be planted along the Valley’s narrow footpaths, according to Pyakurel.

The plantation drive, part of the UNEP’s urban ecosystem-based adaptation project, aims to transplant over 8,000 saplings across the Valley over the next four years, said Pyakurel, adding that the UN agency has allocated Rs620 million for the project and other programmes such as rainwater harvesting, rooftop farming, and greening of spaces and parks, among others, with an aim to “beautify the Valley”.

Beauty, however, is subjective. For Padam Gurung, 31, who runs a grocery shop in Kalopul, the drive “does not make any sense.”

“The riverbank area of Dhobikhola already has greenery,” Gurung said. “I don’t think these plants will grow in the concrete but if they do survive and grow, there won’t be any space for people to walk. This is just a waste of money.”

According to Bhagawat Bhakta Khokhali, project manager for urban ecosystem-based adaptation, the plantation drive is a part of the greenery project. “We have planted climate-resilient trees only where there are wide footpaths,” Khokhali told the Post.

However, when the Post scribe visited the area on Tuesday, all the footpaths in the Ratopul and Kalopul areas in ward 7 of KMC had become way too narrow to walk with the freshly planted saplings dotting them.

“The whole stretch has become very risky to walk,” said Sushil Kumar Rawal, 50, a resident of Kalopul.

Some residents of the Valley have taken to social media to express their disdain about the drive.

On Monday, Anand Chaudhary shared photos of the plantation drive on Twitter asking authorities to find a better place to plant trees. “An already narrow pedestrian area; now it’s hard for two people to pass,” he tweeted. In the photo, a school student can be seen walking on the narrow footpath with saplings planted on either side.

Most Kathmandu Valley roads are narrow with narrower footpaths. Pedestrians have to manoeuvre their way through these narrow footpaths skipping over wares laid out on the ground by shopkeepers. Street vendors, motor workshops and eateries have over the years spilt over onto the narrow footpaths leaving pedestrians struggling to find space to walk.

The local authorities have also planted saplings on the narrow footpaths in Bakhundole and Sanepa areas in Lalitpur, Naxal area, the inner parts of New Baneshwar and Taukhel area in Nagarjun Municipality.

Urban planners say this move highlights the lack of farsightedness in plans adopted to beautify the city and the mismanagement of such drives.

“Instead of managing such inconveniences, local authorities are just supporting such a futile drive that involves a lot of risks for pedestrians,” said senior urban planner Suman Meher Shrestha.

“Just a decade ago, only the Durbar Marg area had walkable footpaths. Today most footpaths are one or two feet wide and the authorities now have planted saplings making the footpaths narrower.”

According to a 2018 ‘Kathmandu Walkability Study’ by the Resource Centre for Primary Health Care, which surveyed 35 different sections of the Kathmandu Metropolitan City, pedestrian facilities are almost non-existent in capital city—60 percent of roads do not have distinctive footpaths and where footpaths are available, the width of the footpath is only four to six feet or less than that.

Roads passing through populated areas must have footpaths of at least a minimum of 1.5 metres in width, according to Nepal Road Standard, 2070 (2013) under the Department of Roads Design and Planning Branch. In case of space constraints, where a footpath is less than 1.8 metres wide, there must be a provision for a passing zone every 50 metres that can accommodate two wheelchairs at a time.

The international standard for footpaths is 1.8 metres, according to urban planner Shrestha.

But this standard is not followed in Kathmandu Valley, Shrestha noted.

“It is a misfortune,” said Shrestha, citing examples of developed countries where, he said, the government takes public safety seriously and therefore puts focus on ease of way. “They allocate wide spaces for footpaths so that people can walk safely. In Nepal, no one cares.”

In his tweet, Chaudhary urged authorities to think of regular users of footpaths like porters, elderly, and people with disabilities—and not just vehicle users passing by—before coming up with such drives.

“Please find better places to plant trees,” Chaudhary wrote.