NRA hands over reconstruction responsibility to local govts

Kathmandu, January 31

The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has handed over the post earthquake reconstruction responsibility to the local governments of 32 quake-affected districts, the authority’s Chief Executive Officer Sushil Gyewali informed.

Addressing the meeting of the National Concern and Coordination Committee under the National Assembly (Upper House) today, Gyewali said that the reconstruction responsibility has been transferred to the local governments in a bid to accelerate the entire reconstruction process, make local governments responsible towards reconstruction at the local level and to help in the implementation of the federal system at large.

According to him, there are 284 local units in the earthquake affected districts.

“We have signed an 11-point agreement with all these local governments to drive the reconstruction activities in their regions. This will ensure that reconstruction activities are accelerated from the grassroot level itself,” said Gyewali.

However, Gyewali said that effective coordination between the central government and provincial and local governments is crucial to accelerate the post-earthquake reconstruction process and complete the entire reconstruction process on time.

At the meeting, NRA also presented the progress in reconstruction in different sectors including educational institutions, health institutions, government buildings and buildings of security agencies and cultural heritage sites.

Statistics maintained by NRA show that reconstruction of 365,293 houses damaged by the earthquake has been completed so far while reconstruction of 589,716 houses is underway.

Similarly, 746,718 of the 811,221 eligible households for the housing grant of the government have taken the first tranche of the grant while 535,332 households and 363,291 households have taken the second and third tranche of the housing grant, respectively.

On the occasion, Dil Kumari Rawal, chairman of the parliamentary committee, said that NRA should further accelerate the reconstruction tasks and ensure that reconstruction of all physical infrastructure damaged by the earthquake is completed on time. Meanwhile, lawmakers also asked NRA to facilitate quake-affected households in getting subsidised loans from the government to rebuild their houses in a proper manner.

Addressing the queries of lawmakers, NRA CEO Gyewali, informed that NRA has set reconstruction targets of the damaged physical structures and assured that reconstruction of these structures will be completed soon. However, Gyewali said that NRA has been facing employee management and budget management challenges in recent times and hinted that the reconstruction process could be affected if these challenges are not addressed on time.