KAILALI, Jan 12: The house of Prem Badi of Suryapur, Tikapur municipality-8, Kailali district, has collapsed. Only the walls stick out from the wreckage of the house. Prem with all his family members now lives in Bhatinda, India. 

The families of Gauri Badi, Nirmal Badi and few other Badis from Suryapur also live in India. Kiran Badi lives in Chaumala of Kailali. Taradevi Badi lives in nearby Sati Bazar. Like Prem’s house, the houses of Gauri, Nirmal, Tara and Kiran have also started wearing out and become dilapidated due to disuse. 

All these houses were built under the government’s Janata Awas (People’s Shelter) scheme. The government has built shelters for the people of the marginalized Badi and Raji communities in Kailali. However, these shelters have started becoming worn as nobody lives in them. 

Many houses built for the Badi community people are in a state of neglect as those for whom they have been built have migrated to India or other cities within Nepal in search of work. 

There are 11 such houses in Suryapur, Tikapur municipality-8. Some of these houses have collapsed while others are on the verge of collapsing. 

The Badi households in Suryapur have divided whatever land holdings they had among the sons and parents after knowing that the government was constructing shelters for them and have built houses for themselves. 

The Janata Awas programme has also constructed a house for Naresh Badi of Suryapur. His two sons also have houses for themselves constructed by the programme. But their homes are vacant. Nobody lives there as both are in India with their families. So, their houses have become dilapidated. 

Thirty-two Badi families in Suryapur have applied for shelters in the name of over 50 people in the hope of getting home. 

However, the reality is that the Badi people do not like the houses constructed under the Janata Awas scheme. “I wish they should have given us 10dhurs of land plot instead of providing shelters. We would build homes as per our liking,” said Kalchu Badi of Suryapur. 

“The government built shelters for us as per its own design. Even slight wind blows it away. We don’t have money enough to build the houses. The houses should have roofs strong enough to withstand the wind,” expressed Shyama Badi of Suryapur. 

According to her, the bricks used for constructing the shelters for them are not strong and the cement used for building the houses is also not of good quality. 

Same is the condition of the shelters built for the Raji community under the programme at Jyotinagar, Tikapur municipality-1. Nobody lives in three houses out of 20 at Jyotinagar. Some of the houses are used at some interval. These houses have also become old and worn out due to disuse. 

Chief of the Urban Development and Building Construction Division Office Dhangadhi, Suresh Raj Wagle, said that 660 shelters have been constructed for the economically marginalized Badi, Raji and Muslim community under the Janata Awas program in the four years since 2070 BS. RSS

 
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