More than 100,000 private houses have been rebuilt and 332,321 are under construction in the 14 districts hit hardest by the 2015 earthquake, according to the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA).

The NRA data show nearly 16.5 percent of the beneficiaries who have signed the agreement for the government or 100,236 households have completed rebuilding the quake damaged homes in the 14 districts until Monday.

Out of the total 667,662 beneficiaries in the worst affected districts, only 610,500 have signed the rebuilding agreement with the government. The latest data suggest the completion rate on private housing reconstruction increased by 5 percent in the last two months.

Only 79,514 private homes were rebuilt until December 28, 2017 when the NRA marked its second anniversary. At the time 676,849 households had signed the housing aid agreement, according to the NRA data.

However, the number of houses under construction has seen an impressive upsurge in the last two months. Then the number of house construction underway was 194,196, which has reached to 332,321 with the latest data.

The NRA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Yubaraj Bhusal said more houses have been rebuilt as data from 17 other districts relatively less affected by the 2015 quake have yet to be collected.

“Too much of document works and frequent change in NRA leadership might have hindered the progress in the beginning. But the number of families receiving second tranche of reconstruction aid and those applying for the final tranche suggest more houses are being built,” said CEO Bhusal. A total of 67,136 households have received the third instalment of financial grant.

According to the NRA, Dhading leads the completed reconstruction charts with 18,940, followed by Dolakha 18,107, Sindhupalchok 11,063. At 1,260, Lalitpur has the lowest number of rebuilt houses out of the total 27,774 beneficiaries.

The NRA has set a target of completing 450,000 private houses by the end of this

fiscal year.

“We are working on war footing to meet the target. Looking at the current pace of progress we are hopeful of achieving that goal,” added Bhusal, explaining about some of the measures the NRA has adopted recently.

“Earlier, engineers were sent to district headquarters. But now, they have been assigned to work in villages and municipalities under the local level governments. This has produced better results.”