KATHMANDU, Aug 20: The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has stated that it will take more than a month to start the damage assessment survey in the remaining 17 earthquake-affected districts.
Even after sixteen months of the devastating earthquakes of last year, the NRA has yet to conduct survey in the 17 quake-hit districts of the total 31 affected districts.
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The survey is the key basis to identify the victims whose houses were damaged by the last year's earthquakes and therefore eligible for the grant assistance of Rs 200,000 each being provided by the government for reconstructing their houses.
“The survey in the remaining 17 quake-hit districts will begin only after the survey in the Valley gets completed,” NRA Deputy Spokesperson Bhishma Kumar Bhusal said.
The Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), which has been entrusted to carry out the survey on behalf of the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA), has said that it will still take a month to complete the survey in all three districts of the Kathmandu Valley -- Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur. The CBS had started the survey from mid-July.
Bhusal said that the NRA is in the final phase of arranging financial resources for carrying out the survey in the remaining 17 quake-hit districts.
“USAID has agreed to provide financial support for the survey. As the manpower mobilized for the survey in the Valley will be mobilized for the survey in the 17 districts, the NRA will have to wait for the survey in the Valley to get completed,” he said.
He said that the NRA has directed the local development offices of all the 17 districts to compile data of those whose houses were damaged by the earthquakes. “Based on the data, our engineers will carry out the survey. As the survey will be a kind of a verification survey, it won't take a long time to complete,” he added.
