Kathmandu, Apr.
26: The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) Thursday said that the lengthy
process to receive the housing grant has affected the post-quake rebuilding.
“Reconstruction
of new houses in many villages has been suspended due to delay in distributing
the housing grant and low bank capacity. Therefore, there is a need for
accelerating the housing grant distribution through monitoring payment status,”
said Tapendra Bahadur Khadka, Project Director at the NRA Central Level
Programme Implementation Unit (Housing).
He made such remarks
at a seminar on ‘From build back better to disaster reduction: Government
responsibilities and the role of mutual help’ organised by the NRA with the support
of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), to commemorate the 3rd
anniversary of the devastating Gorkha Earthquake 2015.
He also said
that quality control and the households which didn’t start construction of
their houses were other challenges faced by the reconstruction.
Chief Executive
Officer of the NRA Yuba Raj Bhusal said that the government had been making
efforts to expedite the reconstruction process. He shared that the government
was setting the target to complete reconstruction of all houses by July 2019.
He said that the
many donors were yet to disburse the support for reconstruction which they
pledged or signed agreements with the government which had also been creating
problems in the rebuilding process.
Bhusal urged the
donors to bring in more money in the reconstruction.
Joint Secretary
at the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) Kedar Neupane said that securing budget,
coordinating with the related ministries, implementing risk assessment and
speeding up formulation of local level disaster risk reduction policy were the
key challenges for the disaster risk reduction investment in Nepal.
The speakers
emphasised that creating a platform of mutual help would be an effective way of
reaching out with livelihood support to the vulnerable groups who are the hardest
hit by the disaster but often tend to be left behind.
They also stressed
the urgent need for the government to take concrete measures for enhancing
urban resilience and investment in longer-term disaster risk reduction in the
country by operationalising the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.
Jun Sakuma,
Chief Representative of JICA Nepal, emphasised that disaster risk reduction is
an integral part of social and economic development, and it is an essential
investment should development to be sustainable in the long term.
He reaffirmed JICA’s
commitment to continue its support to Nepal and its people for accelerating
reconstruction and recovery while further enhancing DRR to attain resilient
Nepal.
Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 27 April 2018.
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