As Kathmandu Metropolitan City couldn’t keep its promise to provide alternate place for food distribution to needy people after the Tihar festival, volunteers had no option but to continue distributing food in Khulamanch today.

According to Hamro Team Nepal, a volunteer organization that has been providing food to needy people at Khulamanch since lockdown, an alternate place could not be arranged for food distribution even though the Mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City, Bidhya Sundar Shakya, had promised to help find a place.

The organization said that though they tried to distribute food in packets for take-away, people were eating the food in the same place.

Those who came to Khulamanch to eat said that they would be in trouble if the volunteers stopped the distribution of food. They also urged the metropolis to either provide them a job or provide them food saying that even they would not want to sit on the streets and eat.

Mayor Shakya had previously held talk with volunteers proposing to manage a closed place such as a party palace after Tihar festival to help in distribution of food after he was criticised for his move to ban providing food in open spaces citing that such act will ruin the city’s. However, the agreement could not be implemented.

People who are relieved by the free food distribution as they don’t have any job to feed themselves have expressed their indignation towards the metropolis for trying to stop the distribution of food. They have demanded not to stop the feeding program saying that they need to be provided with either work or food by the metropolis.