Govt to demolish all damaged buildings

Kathmandu, May 9, 2015: 

The government has decided to demolish all the individual homes damaged in the April 25 earthquake, along with the government buildings at the state expense.

It has also promised to supply all the equipment and human resources needed to demolish the high rise buildings.

The Central Natural Disaster Relief Committee (CNDRC) meeting on Sunday has decided to bear all the cost - related to the equipment and human resource, when demolishing quake affected houses in the country.

The quake has damaged more than 565,000 private houses and government building, half of them being leveled.

As many as 255,000 houses have developed fissures while many of them are unfit to live in.

Therefore, there is a growing pressure to the government authorities to demolish such houses as they pose threat to the houses around, risking lives of many.

CNDRC meeting on April 30 took decision on demolishing the houses damaged in the tremors that might crumble in the future.

The April 30 meeting has decided to remove the debris of fallen homes, acquire the dead bodies and dismantle the damaged homes.

According to the decision, A Nepal Army led team, including Nepal Police and Armed Police Force, would implement the direction by mobilizing the District Development Committees, municipalities and VDCs.

However, the decision could not be implemented as another meeting of CNDRC on May 3, decided to direct the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD), with the assistance from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA), Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport Management (MoPITM) and Kathmandu Valley Development Authority, to demolish the damaged houses.

In the wake of the confusion created by the contradicting decisions of CNDRC, the Council of Ministers on Friday has made it clear that the damaged houses will be dismantled by the government itself while it formed a committee which would suggest whether a building should be demolished.

The committee is being coordinated by Shiva Hari Sharma, Joint Secretary at the MoUD.

Binod KC, Joint Secretary at the MoHA, Gopi Krishna Khanal, Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development, Devendra Karki, Joint Secretary at the Ministry of MoPITM, DIG Hemanta Pal, Nepal Police and DIG Shailendra Khanal, Armed Police Force are the member of the committee.

The committee will also have a Brigadier General of Nepal Army and chief of respective metropolitan city or municipality as members.

However, the meeting of the Council of Ministers has maintained the decision of CNDRC meeting on April 30 that the Nepal Army-led team will be demolishing the buildings.

According to the MoHA, the team can ask for government and non-government assistance if deemed.

It can dismantle the house even without the Sharma-led committee if the house owner requested to demolish their homes.

The MoPITM is asked to facilitate the team with required heavy equipments, human resources and fuel.

If the equipment required to demolish the houses in critical and complex situation is not available in Nepal, the team can make a call for a foreign assistance.

According to the MoHA, the house owners who demolish their house themselves would get the compensation as per the government decision however, that should be in the knowledge of Sharma-led committee.

The government has directed all the stakeholders to work swiftly in order to eliminate the fear from the neighbours of the damaged houses in the cities, said Laxmi Prasad Dhakal, spokesperson at MoHA.