The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has finally brought the Central Level Project Implementation Units (CLPIU), which were functioning under several line ministries, under its jurisdiction.

The authority, mandated to carry out the post-earthquake reconstruction, believes the move will provide a much-needed impetus to the drive that has failed to gain expected results due to the involvement of multiple agencies.

Likewise, the District Level Project Implementation Units (DLPIUs) too have been brought under the NRA to implement the government decision of removing offices at the district levels.

The latest development means all the offices in the district, except the security and land registration offices, has come under the NRA jurisdiction from April 7.

Former NRA chief executive Govind Raj Pokharel had repeatedly urged erstwhile prime ministers Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Sher Bahadur Deuba without success to bring such those units under the NRA’s jurisdiction.

The government had established the CLPIUs under the Ministry of Urban Development, the Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development (Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration now), the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and the Ministry of Education to speed up the post-quake reconstruction works. The CLPIUs had set up offices in 31 earthquake-affected districts which would coordinate the grant distribution process as well as access and supplement the reconstruction of earthquake-damaged infrastructure under the purview of their line ministries.

“The officials at CLPIUs had dual responsibility. The NRA is supposed to fund their activities but they seem to be more loyal to their line ministries which assess their performance. That had complicated the reconstruction drive,” Raju Man Manandhar, said officiating secretary at the NRA.

Besides, as the NRA had been vested with limited powers it could not do more than just making requests to those implementation units. “It would take a couple of weeks for us to find out the number of engineers deployed in a particular quake-hit district,” Manandhar said. “And this bureaucratic red tape affected the implementation process.”

With the project implementation units now under its jurisdiction, he expects the NRA can take calls over issues and resolve them swiftly.

The new set-up under the NRA command will come into effect on April 12. A couple of task forces have been formed to manage staff and other necessary resources within the stipulated time-frame.