KATHMANDU, August 30: Stakeholders here have demanded the earliest implementation of the government's programme for the current fiscal year for designating ten public spaces in the Kathmandu Valley and one such space in each constituency. 

They also voiced their concern over the condition of available public spaces in the Valley being used as dumping sites or parking lots by the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC). 
Speakers at a programme organized on the preservation of public spaces by Primary Health Care Centre here today also underscored preservation of such spaces for the effective disaster management. 

Centre's Executive Director Shanta Lal Mulmi recalled that the public spaces and institutions such as parks, schools and health centres among others served as temporary shelters in the wake of the Gorkha Earthquake. 

Mulmi urged the concerned authority for the construction of public spaces. 

UN Habitat's programme officer Bhushan Tuladhar underlined the preservation of open lawns and chowks constructed in the past as he argued that these infrastructures would offer open spaces for holding social and cultural programmes. 

The municipal new building code dictates that at least five percent spaces of the total land should be left unused while constructing a house or any other structures within the KMC. 
Presenting a working paper, Suman Maharjan expressed his dismay over the increasing lack of public spaces in the Kathmandu Valley. 

Likewise, other participants as Sachin Maharjan and Prakash Maharjan said that many vegetable bazaars in the Valley were placed haphazardly. RSS 

 
• preservation
 
• construction
 
• public
 
• spaces
 
• kathmandu
 
• valley
 
• stressed