Manthali,
Nov. 16:
Finance
Minister Dr. Yuba Raj Khatiwada has said that Nepal needed additional Rs. 150
billion for the reconstruction of the private houses damaged in the 2015 Gorkha
Earthquake for which the government had planned to find new sources of funds.
“According to
the estimates, Rs. 300 billion is required for the house reconstruction grant
for about 900,000 families who have lost their houses in the quake. And, we are
short of Rs. 150 billion,” he said while talking to the journalists after
inspecting a settlement under reconstruction in Gaikhure of Manthali
Municipality – 8 in Ramechhap district on Friday.
He said that the
government had asked the donors such as the World Bank to extend their support
to meet the country’s need for the additional funds.
According to
him, in case of Nepal’s failure to manage the needed funds from the external
sources, the budget of the social sectors such as education and health has to
be slashed in order to manage the housing grant.
“In that
situation, there are chances that the social progress that the country has made
so far would be disturbed as the budget has to be expended for the
reconstruction works,” said Dr. Khatiwada.
Hartwig Schafer,
World Bank’s Vice-President for the South Asia Region indicated towards the
possibility of mobilising additional funds for Nepal’s reconstruction.
“We may increase
the funds for the reconstruction,” he said. He was with the Finance Minister in Gaikhure.
He appreciated
the progress that the country made so far and the quality of the reconstructed
houses.
“Houses look
strong and people are happy. Our partnership with the government has been
fruitful,” said Schafer.
The WB has
provided support of 500 million US Dollars to Nepal to distribute it as a grant
to about 151,000 families.
But, as the
price of USD is appreciated in the recent months, additional 25,000 families
can be benefitted from the money.
According to the
Post-Disaster Recovery Framework (PDRF) prepared by the Nepal Reconstruction
Authority (NRA) in 2016 projected Rs. 838 billion budget for the rebuilding of
the physical structure in the next five years.
The NRA has
surveyed about a million households in the quake damaged 32 districts and
listed 812,161 families as the reconstruction and 61,891 families as
retrofitting beneficiaries.
The
reconstruction body had signed the housing reconstruction grant agreement with
731,011 families and distributed the first installment of the grant to 726,126
families.
It said that the
reconstruction of 324,582 houses had completed while 560,391 houses were under
construction.
Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 17 November 2018.
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