More than 50,000 households affected by the 2015 earthquake in Kavre have still not started rebuilding process, though the government had set the deadline of mid-January for constructing the foundation for new homes.

The government can deny the second and third instalments of the housing aid to these households, according to Ashok Adhikari, deputy chief of the District Project Implementation Unit of the Ministry of Urban Development. He said only 14,967 quake-affected families out of 72,417 in the district have started rebuilding with the first tranche of the housing aid.

According to the data of the ministry, 65,773 earthquake-affected households in Kavre have received the first batch of the housing aid from the National Reconstruction Authority till date.

Adhikari said while there are many reasons for the delay in reconstruction of earthquake-damaged homes in Kavre.

The lack of eagerness on the part of the quake survivors is a major contributor, he added.

The quake-displaced families, however, said that they could not get started due to a shortage of skilled manpower and construction materials.

Only 5, 365 families have completed the construction of their houses so far.

The District Reconstruction Facilitation Committee has proposed the government to extend the deadline for building new homes, as the majority of the quake-affected families in the district have not even started construction yet.

Dhurba Gaida, member secretary of the committee, said that they have urged the government to extend the deadline until the end of the current fiscal year.

Only 14,223 houses built in Dhading

DHADING: Only 14,223 quake-hit families have completed building new homes in Dhading. Chief of the Urban Development and Building Construction Division Office Dilip Bhandari said on Tuesday that only 30% of the families who lost their homes in the 2015 earthquake have started rebuilding after receiving housing aid from the government . Engineer Rojan Shrestha of the National Reconstruction Authority said 81,000 houses in the district were destroyed by the earthquake . Of them, only 64, 664 were included on the housing reconstruction aid list, he said. (PR)