Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on Thursday unveiled a Rs 838 billion plan for five years for the post-quake reconstruction and rehabilitation.

While addressing Parliament on Thursday, PM Oli said that the Nepal Reconstruction Authority has finalised Post Disaster Recovery Framework (PDRF) with a detailed plan of action.   

Earlier, the Post Disaster Need Assessment (PDNA) had projected that Rs 669 billion would require for the reconstruction.

During an international conference last year, donor agencies and countries had pledged over Rs 400 billion for Nepal’s reconstruction and recovery. However, only 30 percent of the total pledged money has been signed with donor agencies so far.

The PDRF has laid out year-wise plans and estimated amount that should be spent annually.

Construction of private houses will be completed within next two years, said PM Oli, adding that it would take five years to reconstruct public buildings.

 The NRA had recently endorsed the five-year plan for reconstruction and rehabilitation. The government started providing money for the construction of private buildings only recently.

According to the five-year plan prepared by the NRA, the amount will be spent in rural housing, urban housing, public buildings, tourism, education, health, industry, communication, heritage sites, disaster management and employment generation. Other priority areas are environment, forest, nutrition, social security, transportation drinking water among others.

Describing the newly adopted action plan as a milestone, PM Oli said it would speed up the reconstruction and rehabilitation and sought support from the parties in Parliament to complete the tasks of reconstruction.

“The action plan has ensured the implementation of all policies and programmes. I am hopeful that the international community will lend its support once the action plan is presented before it,” said PM Oli.

According to the PDRF, 500,000 households, 7,000 educational institutions, 446 health posts, 2,900 heritage sites were damaged by last year’s quakes.

Though PM Oli assured to speed up the reconstruction, NRA is still struggling to manage the manpower required at local level for the implementation of the projects.  

Earlier on the same day, speaking in Parliament, lawmakers from the opposition party had criticised the government for failing to bring a concrete policy on the reconstruction.

NC lawmaker Nabindra Raj Joshi said government had failed to spend the money allocated for the reconstruction of houses and infrastructure damaged by earthquakes.

“We should set up a commission to study why we spent only a meagre amount of money for reconstruction,” said Joshi.