Kathmandu, July 18: The Legislature-Parliament’s Development
Committee Tuesday directed the government to complete the reconstruction works of
private houses by the end of the current fiscal year.
“The reconstruction process of private houses, education,
health and other public service institutions and cultural heritage is very
slow. Distribution of second installation of the housing grant and mobilisation
of concessional loans to the quake-affected families is not encouraging,” said
Rabindra Adhikari, chairman of the Committee.
This committee directed the government, Prime Minister’s
Office, National Reconstruction Authority (NRA), Ministry of Education,
Ministry of Health and Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation to work
on war footing with professionalism and culture to expedite the reconstruction
process.
The Committee had asked the NRA and the Ministry of Federal
Affairs and Local Development (MoFALD) to find out the causes behind the poor
progress in house reconstruction.
“It is unjust not to distribute the grant to those families
who built their house themselves without applying proper quake-resistant
measures due to unavailability of engineers. The government must support them
in making improvements in such houses to meet the standards, and provide the
housing grant to those families,” said Adhikari.
About 557,577 beneficiaries have received the first
installation of the housing grant but only 55,055 families have got the second
tranche while the third installment has been deposited in to the bank accounts
of only 2,734 households.
The Committee has also directed the government and NRA to
settle the complaints registered in 14 severely-hit districts, produce more
manpower for the construction works and create ‘model houses’ in every local
body, and finish those works within three months.
“Similarly, the NRA should develop a manual to provide grant
to the landless people, provide additional money to buy land to build home, and
it should be completed in 10 days,” reads the decision of the Committee.
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