The museum, built to observe and preserve objects related to the identity and culture of the Chepang community, has not been able to become operational due to financial constraints.

Although the construction work of the building has been completed, the museum has not been able to come into operation due to lack of budget for decorating the racks and other things. The museum, built with the investment of the Raksirang Rural Municipality, is empty inside the building. The items kept in the museum have also been piled up in the old building of the municipality.

‘It is estimated that it will cost about one crore rupees to make decorations and racks inside the building to operate the museum in an organized and attractive manner. The municipality does not have the budget and we have requested it from the provincial government,’ said the rural municipality chairman Rajkumar Malla. ‘Since this is also the constituency of Chief Minister Indra Bahadur Baniya, he has assured that he will allocate it.’

This municipality, which is dominated by Chepang, has built the museum to keep endangered materials that the community has been using since ancient times for observation. The municipality has built the museum with a huge investment with the aim of preserving the materials that they used in the past but are now on the verge of extinction, said the chairman Malla.

A museum building has been constructed in Raksirang Rural Municipality-5, Chainpur at a cost of Rs 36.3 million. The rural municipality plans to keep materials that have been used by the Chepang community from the past to the present and that reflect their culture and identity on the lower floor of the three-story building. Chairman Malla said that after the decoration and racking work is completed in the interior of the building, the museum will be put into operation after formulating a procedure.

Deumaya and Bindumaya, women from the Chepang community who have been operating and preserving the Chepang Museum since the past and are now working as office assistants in the rural municipality, also say that the museum should be operated quickly.

In the past, they had been operating and preserving the Chepang Museum. ‘After the municipality demolished the old building and started building a new museum building, they joined the rural municipality office,’ said Chairman Malla. ‘Once the museum comes into operation, they will be assigned there.’

In the past, the Chepang Museum was operating in Chainpur, which is also the center of Raksirang Rural Municipality. People used to come from various places for observation and study.

The 2072 earthquake damaged the museum building. The repair work of the building was done by the Rotary Club of Makwanpur with the financial support of Dilip Baniya of Hetauda. Since the building was getting dilapidated and the museum could not be operated systematically due to lack of space, the rural municipality had started the construction of a new building from 2078 Shrawan to operate the museum systematically.

The Chepang Museum was established at that location in 2067 BS with the support of the then District Development Committee. The museum housed items related to their lifestyle and identity, including a single-winged dhyangro used by the Chepang community, a bat-killing spear, a bat-killing slingshot, a shovel used to dig holes, a plow, a weapon used to hunt wild animals, and a jar for storing chiuri ghee. “After demolishing the old building and starting the construction of a new building, we have kept the items kept in the museum safely in the room,” said Chairman Malla.