Kathmandu, August 10

The government is introducing revised building code and criteria for building construction soon. The Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) is all set to send the proposals in these regard to the Cabinet for approval, which will clear the way for relaxing restrictions imposed on construction of new structures after the earthquakes.

Due to the delay in introducing new National Building Code and building construction criteria, people wishing to build homes have been unable to get the blueprints approved from the municipalities.

After the April 25 and May 12 earthquakes, the Ministry of the Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development (MoFALD) on May 18 had decided not to accept applications for building of new structures and halted approval of blueprints, citing need to amend existing construction rules.

As per the previous plan of the MoFALD, it was supposed to start allowing construction of new buildings from the beginning of the current fiscal year — that is, mid-July — with revised building code in place.

“We recently gave our inputs for the building code to the MoUD, which will send it to the Cabinet for approval,” said Gopi Krishna Khanal, joint secretary of MoFALD. As per him, the government will resume issuing approval for new building construction based on the new building code.

Even though the MoFALD is the implementing agency of the building code and the building construction parameter, it is MoUD that is responsible for making building-related rules.

Dwarika Shrestha, joint secretary of the MoUD, said that the proposals on the building code and construction criteria would be sent for endorsement in the Cabinet within a week.

After the earthquakes, the government studies have found that majority of structures, along with the houses that were destroyed, had not abided by the building construction rules, including the building code. MoFALD officials said that they would strictly implement new building code and take action against those who fail to follow it.

Earlier in June, MoFALD had relaxed some of the provisions related to the ban imposed on building houses by allowing construction of new buildings that are more than two storeys tall and whose blueprints had been approved already from the municipalities.

At that time, the government had also made it mandatory for developers of modern multi-storey structures that were built based on international state-of-the-art technology and buildings taller than three storeys to maintain a hoarding board at the construction site with all the relevant information, such as name of the engineer, date in which blueprint was approved, name of engineer responsible in supervision, among others.