Kathmandu, December 6

The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has said that it will stick to the deadline of this fiscal-end for the grant distribution to the earthquake victims and urged the eligible grant beneficiaries to collect each tranche as per the set deadline.

“We cannot keep distributing the grant amount indefinitely, as reconstruction activities must be time-bound,” Yub Raj Bhusal, CEO of NRA, told The Himalayan Times.

The steering committee meeting of NRA led by the prime minister had set the deadline to receive the grant amount. As per the deadline, quake victims have to collect the first tranche or Rs 50,000 by January 13. According to NRA, out of the 767,705 identified beneficiaries, only 659,506 have signed grant agreement with local bodies to receive the government grant. Agreement with local bodies is mandatory to receive the government aid. As per NRA, almost all beneficiaries that have signed the grant agreement with local bodies have received the first tranche.

However, only 118,315 victims were qualified to receive the second tranche as of Tuesday. As per the set deadline, the second instalment — Rs 150,000 — must be collected by April 13 next year.

NRA CEO Bhusal said that NRA has been deploying adequate number of engineers at the local level, and has also accelerated the drawing/design approval of houses from the municipalities and rural municipalities, waived the

design approval fees and is also providing mason training in the local bodies in an extensive manner.

“Municipalities have to approve the design within a week of submission of the application,” he said, “We have addressed the problem related with engineers, and also conducted training in 282 local units of 31 earthquake-affected districts.”

Earlier, a total of 56,000 masons were trained, but only half of them were working and reconstruction pace was slower due to lack of masons, as per Bhusal. “We are going to train 54,000 masons, of whom 44,000 will be trained by NRA and its extended wings under various ministries — Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Urban Development, among others, and trainees will be recommended by local bodies.”

As per Bhusal, due to lack of proper engineering consultation, a large number of houses were built without abiding by the safe building codes. In the 14 severely-affected districts, 11,169 households that had applied for second tranche have not been approved as the houses were not built as per the standards set by NRA. Though the victims should have taken the second tranche of grant amount by April 13, only 95,420 had received the second tranche as of Tuesday.

However, NRA CEO is optimistic that 60 per cent of the houses will be constructed by April, when the country will mark three years since the devastating earthquake struck the nation. But so far, construction of only 73,271 houses has been completed, while 173,672 are being rebuilt.

As per the deadline, third tranche — Rs 100,000 — must be collected by the end of this fiscal. However, applications of only 32,801 beneficiaries have been approved for third tranche till date. Bhusal expressed hope that the deployment of adequate engineers at the local levels and availability of trained masons will expedite the current slow pace of reconstruction.