Valley
NRA resurvey falls behind schedule
The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has failed to complete the task of resurveying private homes damaged by the Gorkha Earthquake by September 16 deadline.The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has failed to complete the task of resurveying private homes damaged by the Gorkha Earthquake by September 16 deadline. The reconstruction body has mobilised 332 engineers in 14 of the worst earthquake-affected districts to resurvey 128,000 homes.
“We could not complete the task on time due to several issues at the local level,” a senior NRA official said.
According to him, the main reason the task fell behind schedule was the building compliance set by the NRA itself.
While the NRA has made it compulsory for all homes to follow a set of building safety guidelines to ensure the structures are quake-resilient, a large number of house holds have not followed the building directives.
The engineers deputed to survey the underconstruction homes could not issue approval for building grant as a result, the NRA official said.
In the aftermath of the 2015 earthquakes, the government had decided to provide
Rs 200,000 to each household as a building grant. The amount was later increased to Rs300,000 to be paid in three instalments—Rs 50,000, Rs 150,000 and Rs 100,000.
Those who have already constructed their homes without following the NRA’s building guidelines are entitled to get Rs 50,000 for retrofitting purpose; there are nearly 25,000 households in the retrofitting beneficiary list so far.
Yam Lal Bhoosal, the NRA spokesperson, said the engineers were still collecting data of the homes damaged by the earthquakes, and that the decision on extending the resurvey would only be taken after gathering feedback from all the districts.
According to data available in the NRA website, 996,162 private homes have been
surveyed in 31 districts as of mid-August.
The NRA has prioritised Sindhuli, Makawanpur, Kavrepalanchok and Dolakha on top of its resurvey priority list, followed by other districts, including Rasuwa, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur.