April 9, 2003
 Grassroots Grant Assistance for the Construction of a New Girls' Hostel Building of Padma Kanya Multiple Campus
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Padma Kanya Multiple Campus, located in central Kathmandu and established in 1951 for the purpose of encouraging women education, is the largest women's education institute in Nepal with about 8,000 students and 350 teaching staff. Where about 60 percent of the students at present, come from outside Kathmandu valley, the accommodation capacity of the existing hostel (50 students) in the campus is far short of actual demand (more than 500).
In order to partially address the inadequacies in the physical facilities of the campus, the Embassy of Japan extended an assistance of four hundred twenty-one thousand, eight hundred and eighty-five US Dollars (US$421,885), equivalent to approximately thirty-two million, five hundred six thousand, two hundred and thirty-nine Nepalese rupees (NRs.32,506,239) in JFY 2001, to the Campus, for the construction of a new Girls' Hostel Building, under the Grant Assistance for Grassroots Projects (GGP) scheme of the Government of Japan.
When the construction is completed, the four-storied hostel building will have 100 rooms, accommodating 200 students, with facilities such as study rooms, toilets, bathrooms, dinning hall, etc. There will be a provision of 25% reservations for three categories of students, namely, disabled (5% or 10 students), remote rural area (10% or 20 students) and poor (10% or 20 students). The hostel facility is expected to encourage women's education and hence accelerate their participation in social activities as well as the important task of nation building.
On March 4, the foundation stone laying ceremony of the construction of a new Girls' Hostel Building was held at Padma Kanya Multiple Campus. Ambassador Kaminaga, Professor Dr. Sharma, Vice-Chancellor of Tribhuvan University, rector, campus chief, professors and many other distinguished guests were present at the ceremony.
After laying the foundation, Ambassador Kaminaga praised the contribution made by Padma Kanya Multiple Campus, the largest women's education institution in the country, which has been providing post school education to female students of Nepal for over five decades. He stated that the construction of the hostel in the campus signified the aspiration of the Government of Japan and its people to address the issue of women's education for national development. Furthermore, he expressed his hope that the new building will help rural women of Nepal to pursue higher studies in Kathmandu in a more conducive living environment. Expressing his sincere thanks to the Government of Japan for the cooperation, Vice-Chancellor Dr. Sharma remarked that construction of the hostel would help solve students' housing problem to a great extent encouraging rural women to pursue higher studies in Kathmandu.
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