Pokhara Mayor's Firke River Project Faces Delays Amidst Incomplete Demolitions
Pokhara. After the dozer started on the Firke River, Mayor Dhanraj Acharya wrote on social media on the first day, 'Today 20 structures were demolished. The work will be completed in two days.'
Immediately after, he presented a hypothetical plan to build a corridor in the same model, comparing it to South Korea's Cheonggyecheon River. Cheonggyecheon is a river that was used as a highway and drainage for a long time and was developed as a tourist area 23 years ago.
Currently, 64,000 people visit daily and 23 million people visit annually. In the last 20 years, more than 330 million people have visited. Mayor Acharya said that he aims to operate the Firke in the same condition in partnership with the Asian Development Bank.
If Mayor Acharya's announcement is implemented, an organized footpath on both sides of the approximately 8-kilometer-long Firke River, a safe bicycle lane, and an attractive destination for morning and evening walks will be created. The metropolis had previously announced that it would enforce a 6-meter setback after removing the riverbank structures from the Firke.
The metropolis has implemented a 6-meter setback for the Firke, but hundreds of structures fall within the setback. Civil society and stakeholders are skeptical whether Pokhara, which is struggling to demolish the riverbank structures, will advance the new project.
The demolition of Firke riverbank structures, which began in the second week of Jestha, is not yet complete. The dozer campaign, which started with great fanfare, stopped within a week. Currently, the excavated structures have been repaired and people are starting to live in them again in their old condition. Pokhara Metropolitan City does not have details on how many structures were demolished in the Firke.
Information Officer Krishna Tiwari says that the riverbank structures have been cleared. 'Clearing the riverbank structures is the first phase of work. We have almost completed that,' he said. 'The issue of setbacks will come up. We will study how many structures fall within 6 meters and proceed.' Tiwari mentioned that they are aware of some problems arising from not completely clearing the demolished structures.
Civil society and environmental activists in Pokhara have expressed concern that the campaign to remove encroachments on the Firke Riverbank, initiated by the metropolis, has been halted midway.
Mahabhiyan Kaski for Environmental Conservation and Civil Society Kaski jointly held a press conference and expressed their objection to the metropolis stopping the dozer operation without completing the work. The metropolis's own study shows that there are 160 permanent and temporary structures on the Firke riverbank. They allege that only a few of these structures were completely demolished, and others were only superficially excavated.
'We are seriously concerned that the campaign to clear the riverbank structures, operated for the conservation, beautification, and systematic use of the Firke River, which has natural and environmental significance and merges with the Phewa Lake's outflow, has been postponed without being completed,' says civil society leader Rambahadur Poudel. 'The fact that the dozer campaign, which started with the same objective and enthusiasm in the initial phase, gradually waned and was postponed after a few days means the Firke River Corridor campaign has failed.'
Civil society leaders have questioned the role of the elected representatives in the Firke campaign. 'The inability to remove some walls and intersections in some wards, when the structures built on the riverbank should be completely removed, is the helplessness of some ward representatives,' Poudel added. Civil society spokesperson Gokul Bahadur Karki stated that many physical structures have not yet been removed in wards 4, 5, 7, and 8 along the Firke Riverbank. According to him, structures in ward number 4 include informal settlements and concrete structures from Parsyang Bridge westward, concrete structures from Parsyang Bridge eastward to Bhayarthan including Ratoghara, a concrete house erected 100 meters north of the former Scout Compound, and huts that have been repeatedly submerged south of the Scout Compound have not been touched.
Similarly, in ward number 5, buildings 100 meters north of the former Scout Compound and structures to the south, structures built on the riverbank in Rithepauwa south of Radio Nepal, two buildings 10 meters south of the bridge connecting the District Red Cross, buildings northwest of Pokhara Engineering College and structures across the river remain untouched. In ward number 8, the Bagale Tole Community and Kriyaputri Building and Sompal Tamu Samaj Building, structures removed from the riverbank east of Radio Nepal (across the river), the Magar Samaj Ghar and other structures east of the Armed Police Force Kalika Battalion, Baral Samaj Ghar (Badminton Court) and houses to the north, houses 100 meters south of Radhakrishna Temple, remaining structures of Pokhara Engineering College, the blue shed across the river in Gahate, and structures south of Little Step School are yet to be demolished.
Civil society has stated that walls falling within the riverbank area from the Masbar-Ratnachok connecting bridge within ward number 7, some structures north of Little Step School in Gahate's riverbank area, and a chicken coop near the Land Revenue Office also remain to be demolished.
The society has demanded the immediate removal of such structures built by encroaching on public land and river flow areas and to expedite the corridor construction work. According to the metropolis, the Asian Development Bank will provide 620 million rupees to build tourist structures in the Firke Corridor. ADB had included the Firke in Pokhara's Sustainable Tourism Development Project. If there were no obstructions, the work would have been completed in 36 months, starting from 2024 and ending in 2026. The project has not even started yet.
This specific news has been automatically translated by AI. As a result, there may be some inaccuracies or language errors.
_cvUCBlwFTZ.jpg)
