Kathmandu, September 10 The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has reviewed post-earthquake reconstruction cost and estimated that it will require around Rs 700 billion for the reconstruction of quake-ravaged structures including individual houses in 31 quake-affected districts. The Post Disaster Recovery Framework (PDRF), unveiled last year, had estimated reconstruction cost would hover around Rs 837.74 billion and after the increase in housing grant from Rs 200,000 to Rs 300,000, NRA had estimated reconstruction cost would rise to Rs 938 billion. On the basis of that cost estimation, NRA had identified huge funding gap in various sectors. However, the NRA recently reviewed the cost estimation of the PDRF, which is unrealistic. According to NRA sources, the cost estimation in PDRF was high as all the physical facilities that need to be constructed in the quake-hit districts were also included in the list of quake-ravaged projects. “Cost of reconstruction is expected to hover around Rs 700 billion in five years even after the increase in individual housing grant,” a high-level source at NRA said. As per NRA, there will not be huge funding gap in 21 various sectors like health, heritage sites, drinking water projects, government buildings, individual houses, roads, bridges and other public facilities, among others. However, there is a huge funding gap in school reconstruction. “There is funding gap of around Rs 70 billion in school reconstruction and we are planning to mobilise the line of credit facility of Exim Bank India to bridge the gap to some extent,” as per the NRA source. According to NRA, the reconstruction pace of the quake-affected projects, except individual houses has been rather slow. NRA expects around two lakh houses out of the 765,618 beneficiary houses to be completed by the end of September this year. Till date, reconstruction of a total of 47,613 houses has already been completed and 123,520 houses are under construction, as per NRA. The authority has allocated Rs 53 billion for the second and third tranches of the housing aid in this fiscal as only 67,706 and 4,911 houses have received the second and third tranches, respectively.