Seoul to finance peace city plan for Buddha’s birthplace

Lumbini, Buddha’s birthplace in Nepal

By Anil Giri

KATHMANDU — South Korea has agreed to offer $2 million to develop Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha, as a city of peace.

The proposal, entitled a “Master Plan for the Lumbini World Peace City Preservation and Development,”has already been accepted by Nepal’s Ministry of Culture, the sole entity to execute the project. The project is now under consideration by Nepal’s Ministry of Finance,

“We have received a South Korean request to build a master plan for Lumbini as a peace city. The proposal is now under consideration at the Ministry of Finance,” Nepal’s Culture Secretary Dinesh Hari Adhikari said.

Adhikari hoped that an agreement in this respect would be signed soon after getting approval from the finance ministry.

According to the South Korean proposal which was submitted to the Nepalese government by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), South Korea will pay $2 million to help carry out the plan for the peace city.

KOICA said it will develop the plan, paying keen attention to the archaeological, environmental and cultural sensitivity of Lumbini. The Nepalese government has formed a high-level committee under the chairmanship of UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal to develop Lumbini as city of peace.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is also interested in the project. The team led by Chairman Dahal visited New York in September and held a meeting with Ban, seeking his support.

KOICA, in cooperation with the Nepalese government, will begin drawing up the plan in mid-January 2012 and will complete the work over the next 18 months.

According to the proposal, the South Korean government will dispatch about 143 experts from various fields to map out the plan. The experts will be urban designers, architects, local planners, road and traffic engineers, tourism and cultural analysts, environment and disaster specialists and financiers.

According to the proposal, the Korean team will conduct research on cultural, heritage and archaeological aspects in three phases. In the first phase, the team will visit the site of the proposed city to build a concept paper of the project.

They will then look into the environmental aspects, historical and cultural importance as well as heritage of Lumini to figure out the socio-economic environment and infrastructure capabilities of the proposed peace city.

Anil Giri is a contributing writer for The Korea Times.

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