Infrastructure and regional development planner Surya Raj Acharya urged the authorities to be clear about what it wants to do in the earthquake -ravaged areas.
"First the government should be clear about whether it wants to renovate damaged structures or completely reconstruct them," said Acharya at an interaction convened by former Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai at New Baneshwar on Tuesday. "The political leadership should have a clear vision in this situation, while experts should work on those ideas."Former Attorney General Raghab Lal Baidya said the ordinance, which was endorsed by the cabinet meeting on Sunday and approved by the president on Monday, has failed to make the body autonomous.
"The ordinance has made the authority just a wing of the executive [government] and the government has been spreading misleading information terming it an authority," said Baidya. He said that though the government has been projecting it as an autonomous authority, eight of its eleven board members would be from the government such as ministers and others.
"Three experts and one chief executive officer are to be nominated by the government and they can be removed from the posts any time," he explained. "How can the officials work independently in such a circumstance?"
Another noted expert Pitamber Sharma pointed out similar flaws. "The major problem in the ordinance is it lacks conceptual clarity," he said. "The government is not clear whether the authority's task is to renovate damaged buildings or reconstruct them in new design."
He suggested to the government to capitalize the post-quake situation as an opportunity to revise the building code and implement it strictly. He also urged the government to identify human settlements situated in landslide-prone areas and begin town-planning in a scientific way.
Bhattarai also floated some ideas on how to carry out the task of rehabilitation and reconstruction in the changed context.
Related story
Govt recommends president to issue five ordinances
-1200x560-1779450784.webp)
