Engineer Deepak Kunwar Elected President of Nepal Land and Housing Development Association

Engineer Deepak Kunwar, Managing Director of CD Developers Pvt. Ltd., has been elected as the new President of the Nepal Land and Housing Development Association. The election was held during the association’s 18th Annual General Meeting and election program held last night, where a new 15-member executive committee was elected under his leadership.

The newly elected office bearers include:

• First Vice President: Purushottam Poudel

• Second Vice President: Sumit Kumar Agrawal

• Third Vice President: Roshan Bhoyadyo

• General Secretary: Tulsi Prasad Adhikari

• Secretary: Varun Kumar Acharya

• Treasurer: Nishchal Bahadur Shrestha

The elected members are:
Dekendra Kumar Shrestha, Manoj Bahadur Shrestha, Haribhakta Shrestha, Sandeep Shrestha, Prasit Bhoyadyo, Siddhant Vikram Dhamala, Abhas Kunwar, and Arniko Singh.

In his speech, newly elected President Kunwar emphasized that the stagnation of the real estate sector has had a serious impact on the national economy. He called on the government to introduce timely legal reforms and to officially recognize the real estate business as an "industry".

He also highlighted the issue of land ceiling restrictions, stating that billions of rupees worth of land remain frozen, causing significant hardship for developers. According to him, this stagnation has also negatively affected related industries like cement, rod, and steel manufacturing.

Gopal Prasad Sigdel, Secretary of the Ministry of Urban Development, informed that the Urban Development Policy 2081 has already been approved by the Council of Ministers. He added that a draft of the Urban Development Bill has been sent to the Ministry of Land Management for suggestions.

Sigdel stated that the ministry is working on amending the Joint Housing Act and the Building Act to reflect current needs and emphasized the importance of planned land categorization to advance the vision of organized cities.

Ganesh Prasad Bhatt, Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives, and Poverty Alleviation, said that the ministry would facilitate the process of making the real estate sector more structured and streamlined.

Leaders including Shnuprasad Ghimire (President of Nepal Land and Housing Development Federation), Chandra Prasad Dhakal (President of FNCCI), and Dipak Malhotra (Acting President of Nepal Chamber of Commerce) urged the government to promptly pass the land-related ordinance through Parliament.

The newly elected committee is expected to bring fresh momentum to the real estate sector and advocate for critical policy reforms to revive and expand the industry.