Kathmandu, 17 September 2015: Panauti, a town located east of the Kathmandu valley, is undergoing an overhaul to become a green municipality with much proper management of its solid waste and natural resources.
The bid to turn Panauti into a green city is being undertaken with the support of a campaign called ‘Towards Developing a Model of Green Municipality: Integrating Solid Waste and Natural Resource Management Practices in Panauti Municipality for Improved Waste Management and Local Green Economy’. The campaign is launched jointly by the Panauti Municipality with financial assistance from Delegation of European Union to Nepal (EU) and in partnership with International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Women Environment Preservation Committee Nepal (WEPCO Nepal).
The local community and the private sector is launching the campaign in a partnership to deal with the challenges of increasing solid wastes in the backdrop of growing urbanization, said EU senior Programme Manager Ranjan Shrestha. The campaign with a set timeframe of four years has plans to conduct awareness raising and capacity building activities such as trainings, workshops, interactions and sensitization forums among others on combined Integrated Solid Waste Management (ISWM) and Natural Resource Management (NRM). The initiative is to tackle a host of challenges and launch programmes as holding dialogue among concerned stakeholders relating to the landfill site and establish systems agreeable to all.
WEPCO, delegated with the task of training the locals on ISWM and NRM, has already conducted programmes in 13 wards. The training saw participation of 1,500 people in which more than 95 per cent were women, said WEPCO Chairman Bishnu Thakali.
During the programme, the participants were briefed on biodegradable and non-biodegradable wastes management, mechanism for cost and benefit sharing through waste management and development of entrepreneurship.
The campaign, which has set a gettable target of turning Panauti into a Green Municipality in the next four years, will percolate into other municipalities, Project Programme Manager Sujit Karmacharya said. He said the campaign will train the locals on sustainable utilization of land, water and other natural resources provide a sense ownership to the local community with the maintenance of a green environment and develop entrepreneurship among the locals through use of local resources.
The Panauti Municipality includes both urban and semi urban areas within the watersheds of Roshi and Punyamati rivers comprising of 13 wards with 29,506 population and 5,956 households. Rich in cultural and natural heritages with history dating back to ancient times, Panauti has been proposed to be enlisted as a World Heritage Site
