The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has completed detailed assessment of around 50,000 houses of Kathmandu Valley that were damaged by earthquakes last year.

According to the NRA, it has completed detailed assessment of 22,820 households in Kathmandu, 14,808 in Lalitpur and 12,349 in Bhaktapur districts.

According to NRA Joint Secretary Khumraj Koirala, the NRA plans to complete the detailed assessment by mid-September. Earlier, it had planned to complete the assessment by August-end.

“We were aimed at completing the detailed assessment of the damaged households in the Valley by the end of this month, but due to some challenges, including the remoteness of over a dozen of villages in Lalitpur and Bhaktapur districts, we will need some more time,” said Koirala.

The NRA has mobilised 389 teams comprising engineers to supervise for conducting damage assessment in the Valley.

The delay in completing the damage assessment could mean the quake-affected families might not be able to receive their first tranche of housing reconstruction grant by mid-September.

The new government under Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has pledged to distribute the first tranche (Rs 50,000) of Rs 200,000 housing grant to all the identified beneficiaries by mid-September.

“We are working to carry out assessment and distribution of the first instalment to the households in Kathmandu Valley to avoid further delay,” said Koirala.

The NRA teams so far have collected data from 49,977 households in the Valley.

Three districts of Kathmandu Valley are among the 14 districts worst hit by last year’s earthquakes.

The NRA so far has identified 533,155 households from 11 most-affected districts as “true beneficiaries”. The number includes 1,218 households from rural parts of Lalitpur district.

Of the total identified beneficiaries, 375,502 households have signed agreements for housing grant and 106,884 households have already received the first tranche of the aid.