Finance Minister Yubraj Khatiwada has said that the grant provided to earthquake victims for reconstruction of private houses should be spent in a transparent manner.

Inaugurating a seminar organised by the National Reconstruction Authority on Wednesday, Finance Minister Khatiwada said that the government has given first priority to the reconstruction of private houses.

“House owners should be active in rebuilding their homes as the government has been providing grant after taking loan from donor agencies. It is the responsibility of house owners to construct their houses,” Khatiwada said.

He added that the NRA was ready to resolve problems surfaced in course of reconstruction. He said that the Nepal Rastra Bank and NRA would make criteria to ease the process for concessional loan said to be given for reconstruction.

Similarly, NRA Chief Executive Officer Yubraj Bhusal said that out of 102,000 houses that need to be reconstructed in Kathmandu Valley, 10,000 have already been rebuilt and the process begun to construct 25,000 others. “Still 15,000 quake victims have yet to sign agreement for the reconstruction of houses. This programme is organised to solicit feedback from people’s representatives to resolve problems surfaced in this regard,” Bhusal said.

Presenting details on the progress in the reconstruction sector, NRA Spokesperson Krishna Prasad Dawadi and Joint-spokesperson Manohar Ghimire said that a total of 161,000 houses have been reconstructed across the nation. Mayors of Kageshwori Manohara and Dakshinkali municipalities—Krishna Hari Thapa and Mohan Basnet—said the real earthquake victims are still out of the list of beneficiaries. Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, Land Management and Cooperatives Gopinath Mainali, Chief of District Coordination Committee, Kathmandu Shiva Sundar Baidya also shared their thoughts on the matter.