The Development Committee of Legislature Parliament has directed the government to complete the post-earthquake reconstruction works within this fiscal year. 

A meeting chaired by committee Chairman Rabindra Adhikari on Tuesday said that the government needs to change its culture, intent and approach for achieving progress in the reconstruction process that has remained stagnant even 26 months after the earthquake.

Pointing out the meagre number of quake survivors receiving the second and third tranches of the government grant for reconstruction of private homes, the House committee has slammed the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) for denying the aid to a large chunk of households citing their non-compliance to the government reconstruction guidelines.

“Quake survivors who had constructed home on their own due to unavailability of adequate technicians have been barred from receiving grant. The tendency of not deploying technicians as per the requirement and discarding construction of home on the basis of compliance has added to the woes of quake survivors,” the committee decision reads. It has also recommended the authority to assess technical aspects of such houses, make necessary improvements and incorporate newly-elected local representatives for expediting the reconstruction drive. 

According to the latest NRA data, a total of 628,822 households have signed grant agreement with the government. Of them, 594,150 households have received the first instalment of the state aid with 52,166 and 2,590 households collecting the second and third tranches respectively. The NRA had recently approved a guideline that enables the authority to deploy local representatives.

The committee has directed the NRA to mobilise 60,000 construction workers for completing the ‘One Ward, One Model Home’ within three months. The NRA had planned to complete the project by mid-April 2017.  

Highlighting woes of people without land ownership certificate, the parliamentary committee has asked the NRA to prepare a working plan to facilitate such people and initiate a process of extending grant for house construction within 10 days and notify the committee. 

Noting that the government plan of providing Rs2.5 million in subsidised loans for people who lost their homes in the disaster in Kathmandu and Rs1.5 million for those outside Kathmandu has not been implemented, the House panel has directed the Office of Prime Minister, the Finance Ministry, the Nepal Rastra Bank and the NRA to prepare a working plan in this regard at the earliest.