KATHMANDU, APRIL 24
The National Reconstruction Authority has taken up the responsibility of designing a 10-year campaign on Disaster Resilient Nepal.
The 18th meeting of the NRA steering committee chaired by Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli recently awarded the responsibility to design the programme and decided to implement it from the next fiscal year.
The NRA is preparing the programme in collaboration with the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority. According to the NRA, it has also decided to prepare a proposal to implement a long-term programme keeping in view the implementation of disaster management to rebuild heritage settlements and cultural monuments at world heritage sites and to carry out reconstruction and rehabilitation works in Kathmandu valley.
Under this programme, the NRA is preparing programmes to carry out reconstruction and rehabilitation of damaged private houses, public structures, heritages and other infrastructure in an integrated manner taking future disasters into consideration.
The NRA has also approved plans to complete basic reconstruction work by the end of the current fiscal year as per the extended tenure of the NRA. It has also approved the concerned government agencies, policies and programmes and financial plans to hand over the remaining works after 16 July 2021. For this purpose, it has decided to request the government to allocate Rs 36.38 billion budget for the coming fiscal year.
Similarly, the NRA has decided to organise an international conference on Nepal's reconstruction at the end of November or early-December 2021, in coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, considering the timing of 'Sagarmatha Sambad'.
Meanwhile, the NRA said 20,255 beneficiaries had been added to the list of recipients for the government grant and 18,627 beneficiaries signed the agreement during the second four-monthly period of the running fiscal.
Similarly, 22,589 beneficiaries have received the first tranche of the grant while 18,649 beneficiaries and 29,349 beneficiaries received the second and third tranches, respectively.
During this period, as many as 36,050 private houses have been reconstructed and 75 per cent progress has been achieved in the reconstruction of 90 health facilities while reconstruction of 13 health centres has begun with the financial assistance of the Saudi Fund.
Similarly, out of the 147 health centre buildings to be constructed with Indian government grant, review is ongoing to call for tender to construct 33 centres and agreement has been reached with the Indian Embassy to rebuild 121 health centres, according to the Central Level Project Implementation Unit (Building). Likewise, the number of archaeological heritage sites that has been reconstructed has now reached 490 with 25 more such sites rebuilt during the review period.
A version of this article appears in the print on April 25, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
