3.2 Present Context:

At present in Nepal there has been made a clear distinction for the definition of the urban area. Local Self Governance Act (LSGA) 1999 has designated municipalities as the urban area. LSGA itself has categorised municipalities into Metropolitan city (Mahanagarpalika), Sub-Metropolitan City (Upa-Mahanagarpalika) and Municiplaity (Nagarpalika) with proper criteria.

Criteria for municipalities:

Till 2013, 99 municipalities have been declared which are officially recognised as the urban centres of Nepal. However there exist 132 small towns in the country having urban characteristics (Bajracharya, 2012). There has been an uneven distribution of urban areas in Nepal out of 58 municipalities (as of 2011) there are 46 municipalities in Eastern Development region, Central Development Region and Western Development region. However there are only 12 municipalities in Far-Western and Mid-Western Development Region of the country (National Urban Policy [NUP], 2007). Moreover the urbanization is concentrated within the quadrant formed by joining lines from Kathmandu, Pokhara, Siddharthanagar and Birgunj (Sharma, 2012).This is the outcome of centralised development and 10 years long arm conflict in the country. These places were considered to be comparatively safe hence rapid rural urban migration took place along its natural growth. According to CBS 2011 National population growth rate of Nepal is 1.35% however the urban population growth rate is 3.38% (UN habitat, 2011 as cited in Sharma, 2012). Though only 17% (4.5 million) of the total population of the country lives in urban area, these urban areas are contributing up to 60% in the country?s GDP (Sharma, 2012).

Meanwhile if we consider status of infrastructure in the urban centres of Nepal, it is not up to the mark as defined by LSGA 1999. The capital of the country- Kathmandu itself suffers from power shortage up to 18 hours daily however no significant progress has been made to neither promote alternative energy nor manage leakage in the power supply system. According to NUP (2007) 55%  of Urban population (UP) do not have access to Solid Waste Management (SWM), 46% UP are deprived of Basic Sanitation, 47% UP are deprived of Drinking facility and 69% live in their own house and 26% live in rental houses (Sharma, 2012).  More than 25% households of greater Kathmandu and 32% of those in Bhaktapur suffer frequent flooding (ADB, 2000) indicating drainage problem in the valley.

Situation of the roads is very vulnerable and pressure is mounting upon the roads due to increment of vehicles. There are around 1100000 vehicles running in the roads of Kathmandu only. Road congestions are not only pressurizing the roads and creating havoc in the roads but also adding GHG and particulate matters in atmosphere of the valley.

It is obvious that more people need more infrastructures however according to an analysis by Ministry of Urban Development in 2012 Nepal lacks 41000 million rupees to fulfil the demand of municipalities for urban infrastructure development as demanded by city dwellers. This indicates pressure on existing urban infrastructure and services is mounting and since these issues have not been addressed properly and systematically, haphazard urbanization is destroying urban environment.

The real case could be taken from Kathmandu valley, which provides shelter to 2.5 million people. Kathmandu valley?s population has been increasing in geometric ratio however infrastructural development has been negligible in comparison to the demand. At present 48% population live in rental houses indicating deficiency of houses. Also drastic change in land-use pattern, increased number of slums and squatters, urban sprawl, congested roads, polluted rivers, air and squeezing free spaces have described the impact of haphazard urbanization resulted from ineffective response to growing urban population.

Moreover reports and observation from the stakeholders suggest that urbanization trend in Nepal is not systematic and is destroying social and environmental wealth.