The Kathmandu View Tower project, which has courted one controversy after another since its initial days, has been embroiled into another dispute. This time over the submission of an environmental impact assessment (EIA) report.

The Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has yet to submit the EIA report on the proposed tower, according to Narayan Timilsina, a joint secretary at the Ministry of Population and Environment (MoPE).

“We have not received such a report as yet,” said Timilsina. 

KMC officials, however, maintained that they had submitted the report to the ministry. Chief of the Revenue Division at the KMC Mahesh Kafle said they had submitted the report to the ministry a few weeks earlier.

“We had a meeting with ministry officials nearly 15-20 days ago in which we submitted the report,” retorted Kafle. “What else I can say if they are saying so.” 

When asked about the sluggish progress of the project, Kafle claimed the EIA report was one of the first few things that the contractor had completed.

“In the past year, they completed the EIA report, piling report and public hearing,” Kafle said. 

The KMC and the Jaleshwor Swachhanda Bkoi Builders signed a Public Private Partnership (PPP) concept on March 4, 2015 for the construction of the tower on the premises of Old Bus Park. The contractor has to complete the project within three years. 

Initially proposed as a 29-storey project, the number of floors were later revised to 12. 

“We had come across many issues in their preliminary report so we asked them for a comprehensive EIA report,” said Joint Secretary Timilsina. 

The tower’s design was approved in August 2015 and Vice President Nanda Bahadur Pun laid the foundation stone in November 2015. Subsequently, the KMC gave a go ahead to the contractor with the construction on July 16, 2016.

While the KMC and the contractor had been engaged in these officials work, hardly anyone cared about assessing the environmental impact of the project, drawing criticism from the locals and environmentalists. 

However, the project finally took off in January this year without an environmental impact assessment study approval. 

According to the Town Development, Urban Planning and Building-related Basic Guidance 2015, planning permit, structural permit and environment assessment report are mandatory for a construction permit to build any institution spanning over 10,000 square feet requires. 

Director General of the Department of Urban Development and Building Construction Shiva Hari Sharma said the EIA should been done on the tower before starting the construction works.

“Sometimes the construction and environment assessment can go simultaneously. However, for project as big as this should have first completed the EIA,” added Sharma. 

Kafle, however, claimed that the previous preliminary report was similar to an EIA report, in compliance with previous provisions.

A second EIA study was recommended as per the latest guidance only after the Gorkha Earthquake, he said.