HETAUDA, April 27: Province 3 Chief Minister Dormani Poudel has said the province government was sensitive regarding legislating new Act and laws if the prevailing ones were found inadequate in the prompt construction of the houses for the earthquake survivors.

CM Poudel said this while addressing a Province 3 level program of interaction on post-earthquake reconstruction organized by the National Reconstruction Authority on Friday.

He said the local level people’s representatives should be made responsible for collecting the data on the genuine earthquake survivors, pointing out the need for the National Reconstruction Authority to make a self-appraisal regarding the delay in the construction of houses by the people of the earthquake affected areas.

Chief Minister Poudel also urged the NRA to streamline its role and speed up the house construction works by providing immediate support to the people adopting financial transparency. He called for coordination and collaboration with the province government to that regard.

Speaker of the Province 3 provincial assembly, Sanu Kumar Shrestha said that the province government should make preparations for formulating the laws for transferring the works regarding the construction of houses for the earthquake survivors, being carried out by the NRA and the federal government, to the provincial government.

He urged the NRA to provide the house construction grants and services the government provides to the earthquake survivors also to the survivors without their own land or who are living on public land by providing some papers that establish their land-ownership.

On the occasion, NRA Chief Executive Officer, Yubaraj Bhusal, presenting the particulars of the works the NRA has carried out so far in support of the earthquake survivors, said the Authority has maintained fiscal discipline and transparency as well as provided the housing grants and other facilities to the earthquake affected families.

He added that the engineers were engaged in the reconstruction of public schools and national heritages.

NRA under-secretaries Manohar Prasad Ghimire and Krishna Kumar Bhusan had presented the progress report on the reconstruction carried out by the Authority.

The Ministers of the provincial government, the Province Assembly members, the chief and members of the District Coordination Committee, municipality mayors and deputy mayors also participated in the interaction program.

Bhisma Raj Ojha and Hari Lamichhane
KATHMANDU, April 24: The amount required for the post-earthquake reconstruction is put at Rs 706 billion, but only around Rs 120 billion has been spent so far.

The sluggishness in the reconstruction works and inadequate spending is attributed to the frequent change in government, the organization of three tiers of elections and the change in the Chief Executive Officer of the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA).

The Post-Disaster Needs Assessment report had estimated that the post-quake reconstruction would require Rs 706 billion. The government convened the International Conference on Nepal’s Reconstruction 2015 on June 25, 2015.

More than 250 foreign delegates including 23 multilateral, 40 bilateral agencies and individual basis attended the conference. Rs 440 billion was committed by the bilateral/multilateral partners and donor agencies in prior commitment in the conference. However, of the committed amount, approximately Rs 343 billion 219 million 291 thousand 500 was received.

Out of the amount received, project agreements for only Rs 249 billion 944 million 38 thousand 200 has been signed.

NRA’s joint spokesman Bhisma Kumar Bhusal said so far about Rs 120 billion has been spent in the reconstruction. This includes the government amount as well as the amount provided by the international donor agencies.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) had committed Rs 60 billion, the World Bank Rs 50 billion, China Rs 48.96 billion, Japan 26 billion, and the United States of America Rs 13 billion. The remaining support was received from bilateral and multilateral agencies.

Of the amount promised during the conference, around Rs 129.42 billion was the grants assistance and Rs 213.08 billion was the soft loan assistance, according to NRA joint spokesperson Bhusal.

Post-disaster needs assessment carried out in the aftermath of the quake shows that a total of 498,852 private houses and 2,656 government buildings were completely destroyed by the quake. Likewise, it had partially damaged 256,697 private houses and 3,622 government buildings.

In addition to this data, 19,000 classrooms were completely flattened and 1,100 were damaged. The quake took the lives of 8,979, leaving 22,309 injured. Thirty-one districts were hit by the Gorkha quake and its aftershocks.

Among the affected, 767,705 private houses are in the list of NRA beneficiaries and so far construction of 119,233 houses have been completed, as stated by NRA Spokesperson Yamlal Bhusal.

To date, 368,761 beneficiaries have taken the second installment of house grants announced by the government while 123,537 are in the process of receiving the third installment.

NRA Chief Executive Officer Yubraj Bhusal has claimed that the rebuilding works will get complete within the next five years. So far fifty percent progress has been achieved.

As he said, the post-quake reconstruction works are not much challenging, though 24 structures are needed to be constructed for people residing in the geographically risky areas. He added that 5,500 structures are under construction.

He said, “There is still challenge to build remaining 18,500 houses.” Saying it has been easier to carry out reconstruction works after formation of local-level, Chief Executive Officer Bhusal claimed that representatives of local rural municipalities have been forwarding works after holding interaction with rural municipalities federation.

He also urged the beneficiaries to take facilities provided by the government after constructing the houses as soon as possible, adding that there was no any problem to provide tranche amount.

Expressing gratitude to donor agencies for their support in reconstruction task, he asked all bodies concerned to involve in reconstruction task coordinating with the Authority.

Bhusal also urged the donor agencies to provide support only through NRA.

25,000 COMPLAINTS OF SERVICE RECIPIENTS
About 250,000 complaints have been filed in the NRA so far. Most of the complaints are related to missing in enlisting in the service recipients list, technical problems in constructing houses, fake recipients were enlisted in the list among others, said NRA official Netra Subedi.

He added that they will hear such complaints by June this year.

Various Ministries including Education Ministry, Culture Ministry have initiated constructing (reconstructing) schools and cultural heritages building respectively.

Similarly, other Ministries are also initiating to launch reconstruction projects in their areas.

The NRA is endorsing, allocating, coordinating and monitoring the expenditures and budgets. The National Reconstruction Authority was formed in August 2015.

POST-QUAKE RECONSTRUCTION LAGGING BEHIND DUE TO ADEQUATE TECHNICAL HUMAN RESOURCES

KATHMANDU, Oct 25: Newly appointed Chief Executive Officer of the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA), Yubraj Bhusal has expressed his commitment to provide a new home to all the homeless families who are still living in the makeshift shelters before monsoon starts.

Thousands of families rendered homeless in the devastating earthquake of April 2015. But the post-quake reconstruction has failed to gain momentum even three years after the quake. “It is our target to resettle the thousands homeless families from their tents to their new homes before next July,” said Bhusal while speaking during an interaction program organized by the Reporters’ Club Nepal on Wednesday.

Bhusal reasoned that post-quake reconstruction efforts were still lagging behind in lack of adequate technical human resources and pledged to recruit and train technicians as required by the rural municipalities and municipalities across the country for the same.

He said, “One of the major setbacks to the post-quake reconstruction work is lack of competent and skilled manpower at local levels. Our first step will be deploying qualified technicians to every station of the local units before mid-December. It will obviously gear up the reconstruction works,” he further added.

According to him, of the total 1100 technicians selected for the reconstruction effort, more than 900 had placed their requests to retain them in the Kathmandu Valley. “Since a majority of the technicians are city-centered, the reconstruction drive in the remote areas is still a distant dream,” Bhusal argued.

In reference to the international donors’ conference held in 2015 in the wake of the Gorkha Earthquake, he said that the NRA could organize similar kind of conference yet again if need be.

The newly appointed CEO of NRA clarified that the reconstruction drive was not affected due to financial constraints but due to failure to mobilize the resources in the Authority.

He shared that the NRA had ensured the release of more than Rs 1.49 billion fund in the current fiscal year for the reconstruction of 767,000 houses. More than 87,000 quake-survivors have received the second installment of total Rs 300,000 relief assistance.

Bhusal also said that he would fulfill his responsibility without coming under pressure from any political parties or influence.

He said, “I have no any political background. During these three years tenure, I will serve my people honestly while focusing the entire energy on the reconstructions.”

“People need result. Unless a homeless a relocated to a new home, we can call it a success. I pledge relief to every affected family,” added Bhusal.

KATHMANDU, Oct 24: Newly appointed Chief Executive Officer of the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA), Yubraj Bhusal has said that great achievements would be accomplished in the post-quake reconstructions within the next three months.

Talking to media-persons after assuming office today, he also pledged to release the second tranche of the housing grant for the people affected by the earthquake of April 2015 before monsoon starts this year, while focusing his entire energy on the reconstructions. “We will do something good to bring cheers to the quake survivors at least until January 16, the day when Earthquake Safety Day is celebrated this year.”

Saying the reconstructions are a task to be done with cooperation, he stressed the need for all stakeholders and international donor agencies to work together in this regard. “I will give a special focus on the reconstruction of archaeologically important structures like Dharahara, Bal Gopal Temple, and Basantapur Durbar,” he said. RSS