HOUSING IN LEKHNATH

Housing refers to a dwelling or a housing unit. Housing is an important need of every people. A suitable housing facility has a positive effect on the people’s health, productivity, living standards,mental status and so on. The information on housing and access to facilities are important for right planning of right place to rise the standard of living. The survey conducted in Lekhnath municipality collected information on ownership and type of house used by household, source of drinking water, type of toilet used by household, sources of energy for cooking and lightening, and so on. Ownership type, number of room used and access to utilities and amenities such as electricity, piped water and cooking fuel are known in housing.
Ownership of house or part of house or flat/apartment that usually used by household refers to the legal status. By ownership, house is categorized into four groups: owned, rented, squatter and other. Housing unit occupied by owner’s household is termed as owner occupied while that housing unit for which the occupant actually pays rent is termed as rented-in and the occupant is a renter. Information on ownership of house used by household is an essential part of physical settlement planning. The survey shows that almost 72%households reside in their own housing units, 17%are renters (pay rent),7.8%households are living as squatter and 2.4%households are living in other category. Comparison of the data among wards shows that most of households are living in their own house in all wards of Lekhnath municipality. It is found that ward no. 10 has highest percentage of households (91.6%) living in their own housing units. Ward no. 3 has the highest percentage of households (37.7%) who have not their own house and live in rented house. Ward no. 13 has the highest percentage of households (20.6%) who have not their own house and live in squatters. Similarly, ward no. 15 has the highest percentage of households(5.6%) who are living in other category.
House refers to a structure where household members are using as shelter and that is closed or surrounded by walls or curtains made of any types of materials such as mud, flacks, bricks, stone, concrete ,etc. A house may have contained any number of rooms, by it must have a separate way to go inside. Residential houses are divided into five categories by types. These are Pakky (permanent), Ardha-pakky (semi-permanent), Kachchi (non-permanent), Jhupadi(hut) and other. These are defined on the basis of materials used in wall and roof of dwelling unit. Pakky house refers to permanent type of dwelling unit. Walls and roofs are made of durable materials. Ardha-pakky house refers to semi permanent and the structure is made with combination of either durable wall and non-durable wall. On the other hand, Kachchi house is built with non-durable materials in both wall and roof. Others types of house is a temporary type of residential unit that is made with non- durable materials. This type of housing unit is, generally, made with plastic, sheet, bamboo, straw/thatch, etc. The study shows that higher percentage(more than 44%) of household is leaving in Pakky type of house in the Lekhnath municipality followed by 32% households are living in Kachchai house, 21% are living in Ardha-pakky house and 0.3% are living in other type of house. It is observed that the highest percentage of households(78%) reside in Pakki house, which found in ward no. 8, where as the highest percentage of households (67%) of ward no. 6 reside in Kachhi house.A dwelling size is measured by number of rooms and its surface area. The study shows that 39% of households have two or less than two rooms, 18 % have 3 rooms, 17% have 5 or more than 5 rooms.