By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Feb. 18: The Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has started demolishing the structures constructed in the Open Theatre from Wednesday.
The Open Theatre, popularly known as Khulla Manch, and a witness of several political changes had turned into a safe shelter for hundreds of earthquake victims during the 2015 earthquake.
Later, the open ground was encroached in the name of temporary old Bus Park, an unmanaged parking, a storage site for the construction materials of Bir Hospital and a place to keep the labourers of the Durbar High School and Dharahara reconstruction projects.
Earlier, KMC had urged the authorities of both Bir Hospital and Durbar High School to clear the ground section after the construction of Bir Hospital reached the final stage and of Durbar High School completed.
As per the plan, the process to remove the temporary structures of Khula Munch has started today, said Ishwor Man Dangol, spokesperson of KMC.
“It is the responsibility of KMC to support in the reconstruction of the earthquake-damaged government structures. As a part of supporting them, we had provided Khula Manch to store the construction materials and build temporary huts for labourers working at Durbar High School and Bir Hospital,” said Rajeshwor Gyawali, chief administrative officer of KMC.
After the purpose of using the open space by both authorities has ended with the completion of the reconstruction of Durbar High School and Bir Hospital, we have started removing the structures, which will continue, said Dangol.
He further said that the KMC was planning to properly utilise Khula Munch and develop it a public-friendly open theatre after cleaning the site.
“Our latest planning is to develop it as public-friendly open theatre for mass gathering and meetings and add greenery by planting trees and grasses on the ground,” he said.
KMC is discussing to prepare a master plan to develop Khula Munch in a systematic and proper way, he added.