Rickety NSU building a shabby show years after earthquake

 Kathmandu, June 28: Owners of the curio and other shops which are in operation in the open-air souvenir market of Basantapur Dabali near the rickety building of the liaison office of the Nepal Sanskrit University (NSU) have been in constant fear for nine years after the Gorkha Earthquake in 2015. The building used by the NSU developed multiple cracks in the massive earthquake. 

Basantapur Dabali, an open area adjacent to Hanumandhoka Durbar Square, is always crowded with domestic and foreign tourists. 

But the NSU building standing to the south of the Hanuman Dhoka in support of several logs not only poses a threat but also is an eyesore to the tourists visiting the World Heritage Site (WHS) every day. 

Because of the negligence shown on the part of the relevant institutions and stakeholders, the rickety white building standing in the World Heritage Site (WHS) has not been demolished even nine years after the earthquake. 

As a result, the four-and-a half-storey damaged structure still stands in support of 14 logs in the heart of the capital city.  

Macharaja Maharjan, Ward Chairperson of Ward No. 23 of Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC), said that currently they had no plan to reconstruct or pull down the building. The metropolis had earlier decided to demolish the building through the ward but did not allocate any budget for that.    

It seems that the metropolis is not serious about the risky building, he said.  

Maharjan said, “We have demanded the allocation of the required budget to demolish the building, and the demolishing process will begin from the coming fiscal year if the KMC allocates the budget. Otherwise, we cannot say anything about this building.” 

“We need to exert pressure if the metropolis does not allocate budget in the coming fiscal year,” he said. 

He further said that the adjoining building used by Nawa Aadarsha Secondary School would also be demolished together with the NSU building if the KMC allocated the budget. The school had already been shifted to the buildings of another community school. 

Saubhagya Pradhananga, Director General of the Department of Archeology (DoA), said that earlier the metropolis proposed to the DoA to demolish the building but it rejected citing a lack of manpower. 

The DoA has prepared a drawing design of the new building for the metropolis to reconstruct it in its original shape after demolishing the old structure. The DoA will keep only inventory records of the building, she said.

It seems the main stakeholder, Nepal Sanskrit University, has not paid any attention to take care of its liaison office. The office had been shifted to its central office in Beljhundi, Dang, after the building was damaged by the earthquake.   

Before the ratification of the NSU Act in 1986, the building was under the ownership of Tribhuvan University (TU). After the introduction of the Act, TU handed over the building to the NSU, which has its central office in Beljhundi, Dang, Lumbini Province, to use it as its liaison office in Kathmandu and a research centre.

However, according to the Sanskrit University, TU has handed over the ownership only orally, not legally. This means that even though NSU has been using the building for the past 35 years, the land is registered under TU’s name. 

The NSU says it cannot move forward with the reconstruction process because of the issue of legality of ownership while TU says that NSU is solely responsible for the building and its renovation because it has been using it since the 1980s.

Because of this dispute, neither university has taken any initiative to begin rebuilding the severely cracked building nor have they made any effort to manage funds for it.