Kathmandu, Oct. 18
Chief Executive Officer of the National
Reconstruction Authority (NRA) Sushil Gyawali on Friday urged the beneficiaries
of the post-quake reconstruction to obtain the second tranche of the housing
grant before mid-November this year.
Speaking at a programme in Lalitpur, he
requested them to get the grant money in due time. The NRA has set the
mid-November 2019 as the deadline to obtain the second instalment of the grant.
The beneficiaries are entitled of Rs.
300,000 for the reconstruction of their houses damaged in the devastating earthquake
in 2015 which is being distributed in three tranches of Rs. 50,000, Rs. 150,000
and Rs. 100,000.
The reconstruction body has signed grant
agreement with 776,910 families, of which 768,549 have obtained the first
tranche, 612,105 second and 507,048 the third tranche.
About 469,259 houses have been
reconstructed while 194,456 houses are under construction.
But, only 32 per cent beneficiaries in
Lalitpur district have obtained the third instalment of the grant.
Gyawali said that it was necessary to
understand the reasons behind the delay in house reconstruction in urban area,
and directed the staff to be mobilised as per 'one house, one project' plan.
Deputy-Director of the Central Project
Implementation Unit (Grant Management and Local Infrastructure) Narayan Prasad
Shrestha said that support from one and all was needed to expedite the
reconstruction in the urban areas otherwise the beneficiaries would be deprived
of the government grant.
According to District Project
Implementation Unit (Grant Management and Local Infrastructure Lalitpur) Shiva
Ram Gelal, the beneficiaries had the problems like landlessness, small piece of
land, dispute in land ownership and unwillingness in house reconstruction.
Meanwhile, the Reactive Monitoring Mission
of the Unesco, which is in Nepal to study the recent status of the Unesco World
Heritage Sites in the Kathmandu Valley, has met CEO Gyawali on Thursday.
He informed the visiting delegation that
the NRA had given special attention to heritage reconstruction. He said that
while the reconstruction of the cultural monuments was going on, the government
was also developing a detailed Master Plan to develop them.
He
also informed that the work had been expedited to develop three heritage
settlements each in the Valley and outside.
The Unesco Mission is led by Gamini
Wijesuriya, International Export at the International Centre for the Study of
the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Properties. He suggested
maintaining the records of the heritage reconstruction.
Of the quake-damaged 140 heritages in
the Valley, 90 have so far been restored.
Pashupatinath Temple, Swayambhunath
Stupa, Hanumandhoka Durbar, Patan Durbar, Bhaktapur Durbar, Changunarayan
Temple and Bauddhanath Stupa are the Unesco World Heritage Sites in the Kathmandu
Valley.
Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 19 October 2019. 
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