By Our Correspondent, Birtamode, March 16: A total of 219 poor families in Kankai Municipality of the district have received new houses within three years from joint effort of Kankai Municipality, Habitat Nepal and Sahara Nepal.

At a special programme organised on Tuesday, 14 houses built in Musahar settlement at Kankai-4 were handed over to the poor families jointly by Christi Stickney, chief of Habitat Nepal, Rajendra Kumar Pokharel, Mayor of Kankai Municipality, and Chief District Officer Shrawn Kumar Timilsina.

Speaking at the programme, Mayor Pokharel said, “The municipality is committed to declaring the municipality as poorly built house-free area within next Fiscal Year. For this, Rs. 20 million has been allotted to cooperate with other donors.”

Speaking at the programme, Chief District Officer of Jhapa Timilsina said, “Every citizen’s right to shelter, which has been guaranteed by the Constitution as fundamental rights, must be safeguarded to give meaning to ‘Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali’ campaign.”

Likewise, Mahendra Kumar Giri, executive director of Sahara Nepal, informed that the organisation had handed over shelter to 18,000 poor families in Kankai Municipality, Barhadashi and Jhapa Rural Municipalities, Birtamode and Gauriganj of Province 1 in cooperation with the local government.

Various houses are being built in Jhapa under Mayor Shelter Programme after the formation of the local government.