Photo: Bikram RaiNearly 14 months after last year's earthquake, only 1,000 survivors have received grants from the government to rebuild their houses.
The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA), which was set up in December last year, has so far identified 300,961 earthquake survivors as eligible for the Rs 200,000 reconstruction grant. However, just 47,925 survivors of them have signed the contract with the NRA to get the grant.
On Wednesday, the NRA Chief Sushil Gyewali informed the Development Committee of Parliament that approximately 1,000 survivors have received the first installment of the grant (Rs 50,000). "Those who have signed the contract will get the first installment very soon," he said.
According to Gyewali, reconstruction of earthquake-damaged heritage sites like Rani Pokhari and Patan's Mani Mandap is already underway, and the NRA is involved in the tender process for rebuilding 49 heritage sites.
Construction of five school buildings in Lalitpur with the support from the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and 11 more schools in Kavre with the support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has begun, according to Gyewali.
However, Members of Parliament, including from the ruling party UML, criticised the NRA for its 'sluggishness' in post-earthquake reconstruction. UML MP Rabindra Adhikari said: "The NRA officials are talking big, but doing very little to help earthquake survivors."
On 25 April last year, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake killed nearly 9,000 people and destroyed more than 400,000 houses. Two months later, donors who gathered in Kathmandu pledged $ 4.2 billion for reconstruction. But it took the government eight months to set up the NRA to begin reconstruction work.
On the first anniversary of the earthquake one month ago, the NRA announced the start of the reconstruction campaign. But the NRA has completed the survey of earthquake damage in only 11 of the 14 worst-affected districts so far.