Kathmandu, August 6

The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has started a three-day orientation training for newly appointed engineers who will soon be mobilised for the reconstruction process. NRA has planned to mobilise 332 newly appointed engineers to handle complaints registered by people in the 14 districts that were highly affected by the devastating earthquake of April 2015.

On the occasion, Secretary of NRA Sarbajit Prasad Mahato, urged the engineers to settle the complaints of earthquake affected people in a speedy manner. According to him, the major task of the engineers will be to verify the complaints registered by those who were left out from the beneficiary list and also handle other complaints lodged by affected people.

According to data maintained by NRA, a total of 207,500 earthquake affected people have registered complaints at the authority.

NRA has planned to organise a survey programme in eight districts in the first phase in collaboration with the Central Bureau of Statistics. According to a media release issued by NRA today, among the selected engineers, 168 engineers will be mobilised in Okhaldhunga, Ramechhap, Dolakha, Sindhupalchowk, Kavrepalanchowk, Nuwakot, Rasuwa and Gorkha from August 10.

NRA will mobilise the remaining 164 engineers in the other six districts that include Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, Sindhuli, Makawanpur and Dhading. They will be mobilised from August 14.

The authority has planned to collect on-field statistics of the 14 districts within September 16. During this process, it will verify status of 81,082 families who have already been included in beneficiary list and also status of 52,278 families who have been left out of the list.

NRA has already looked into complaints filed by households who had not been included in the beneficiary list and included 39,097 families in the list. Likewise, 13,565 families who needed their houses to be retrofitted have been included in the ‘retrofitting’ list. According to NRA, a large number of complaints filed in Sindhuli, Makawanpur, Kavrepalanchowk and Dolakha districts have to be verified again. The number of complaints that need to be verified again are lower in Rasuwa, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur.

NRA has planned to resolve all the complaints within October 15 this year.