Nepal completes 83 per cent of post-earthquake reconstruction
Nepal's National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) said that it has completed 83 per cent of the country's post-earthquake reconstruction. The NRA, established to fast track the reconstruction process, entered the fifth year on Wednesday, reports Xinhua news agency. The deadly earthquakes on April 25 and May 12 in 2015 in the country claimed the lives of 8,790 people while injuring 22,300 others, damaging private and public properties worth $7.06 billion, according to the Post Disaster Need Assessment made by the Nepali government in collaboration with foreign donors.
Nearly 900,000 individual houses were either fully or partially damaged while a large number of public infrastructure including schools, health posts, offices of security agencies and heritage sites were also damaged.
NRA Chief Executive Officer Sushil Gyawali told media here on Thursday that the reconstruction of 69 per cent individual houses and other public infrastructure has already been completed. "The reconstruction is undergoing in 14 percent individual houses and public infrastructure. The combining progress of the completed and under-construction works stands at 83 per cent." The government has been providing 300,000 Nepali Rupees ($2,624) in grants to each family, whose house was completely destroyed and has no other accommodation facility.
Of the total 780,165 beneficiaries of the government's grant, 482,323 beneficiaries have completed rebuilding their homes, according to the NRA. Likewise, 5,380 school buildings out of the damaged 7,553 ones, have also been completed. Reconstruction of 387 heritage sites out of the damaged 891 has also been completed, according to the NRA. A total of 665 health posts and 359 government buildings have been reconstructed.
The NRA said that it had spent $2.93 billion to achieve the progress so far with the resources from the Nepal government, donors and non-government organizations. Foreign donors committed a total of $4.1 billion, with India and China being the two largest donors while the World Bank and Asian Development Bank had also pledged huge amounts for the reconstruction.
The NRA said that it still needs additional $2.62 billion to complete the remaining work of the reconstruction.
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