The Multi-Donor Trust Fund—set up to enable donors to coordinate their finance for housing reconstruction in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake last April and led by the World Bank (WB)—has reiterated its call to provide housing aid in three tranches as had been originally agreed upon.

A letter sent to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) by the WB dated July 21 states that the proposal by a few Members of Parliament to alter the current arrangement and provide housing grants in two installments—Rs150,000 and Rs50,000—would cause inordinate delays and confusion to the beneficiaries who have already waited for more than a year.  This is the second call by the WB within three weeks of a government decision to release the Rs 200,000 housing grant in three tranches, instead of two.

In the wake of continuous House obstruction by the Nepali Congress (NC), the governing CPN-UML and the main opposition had reached a deal to release the housing aid in two tranches. A day after Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli informed the House about the decision, the WB on July 1 had written to the government reminding the latter of the earlier deal.

The latest letter addressed to Baikuntha Aryal, joint secretary at the MoF and sent by Takuya Kamata, country manager of WB, on behalf of the development partners including JICA, USAID, Switzerland, European Union, DfID and the Asian Development Bank, reads: “Any changes in the design at this stage would mean inviting delays in execution of the programme.”

As per an earlier decision reached with the development partners, the government should release the Rs 200,000 housing aid to beneficiaries in three tranches—Rs50,000, Rs80,000 and Rs70,000.

 “The development partners supporting the reconstruction programme are of the view that the payments of the housing grant should be made in three tranches as originally agreed and as stated in the reconstruction and restoration policy and grant distribution guidelines,” the letter says.

The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) so far has signed grant agreements with 260,728 households in 11 districts. As many as 39,702 households have already received the first installment of Rs 50,000 as of Wednesday.

Stating that the housing programme was designed in accordance with the principles agreed during the International Conference on Nepal’s Reconstruction in June 2015 and based on international best practices, the WB letter says. “We do not see any clear benefits to design changes in the programme when the implementation has already accelerated to a desired level.”

When asked, Ram Prasad Thapaliya, spokesperson for the NRA, said, “The development partners are concerned about compromise in safer construction in case the grant is provided by altering the existing arrangement. But nonetheless, the NRA is yet to be notified about any changes in housing grant procedure.”