Miscellaneous
House committee to summon PM Dahal
Concerned over the delay in releasing the reconstruction aid to thousands of earthquake-hit families, the parliamentary Development Committee on Tuesday decided to summon Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal for a meeting.Concerned over the delay in releasing the reconstruction aid to thousands of earthquake-hit families, the parliamentary Development Committee on Tuesday decided to summon Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal for a meeting.
A meeting between parliamentarians, the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) and the ministries working in post-earthquake reconstruction had taken the decision.
“We have decided to call Prime Minister Dahal as soon as possible to discuss the concerns of poor local governance, lack of trained human resource and funding gap to effectively reach out to the affected families,” said committee Chairman Rabindra Adhikari.
Despite some progress in releasing the first tranche of the housing grant in the past three weeks, challenges remain in the form of lack of banking services for remote households, unavailability of construction materials, lack of trained human resource and poor monitoring.
The government has expedited the process of signing agreements with the locals for reconstruction but managing the supply of construction materials is difficult, said Adhikari. “There is the need for establishing a resource bank to ensure that quality materials are available at affordable prices,” he added.
The committee also directed the government to address the persisting challenges and disburse Rs50,000 of the rebuilding aid to over 500,000 households within the next 15 days.
Presenting a progress report, CEO Gyewali said the government has released Rs10.236 billion so far to provide the first tranche of the rebuilding aid to 200,472 households. Rs168 billion has been set aside for reconstruction this fiscal year.
Out of the 533,155 households listed as “true beneficiaries”, 394,915 have signed tripartite agreements for the rebuilding aid.
- Detailed assessment of 63,603 households damaged by earthquake in Kathmandu Valley
- Geological studies of 117 vulnerable places—57 recommended for relocation
- Construction of 82 community shelters with support from the Nepal Army and the Ministry of Urban Development in 14 quake-hit districts
- Reconstruction of 49 archaeological sites underway
- Agreements signed with various organisations to reconstruct 500 school buildings.
- Construction of 100 pre-fabricated health centres over; rebuilding of 100 ongoing