National
One-third of classrooms rebuilt in three years
Only one-third of the classrooms damaged in the Gorkha earthquake have been reconstructed in the past three years.Rastriya Samachar Samiti
Only one-third of the classrooms damaged in the Gorkha earthquake have been reconstructed in the past three years. Around 39,000 classrooms of 7,923 schools in 31 districts had been damaged in the earthquake of April 25, 2015, and its aftershocks. Three years since the disaster, the authorities have managed to build only 13,249 classrooms.
Earlier, the post-disaster recovery report of the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) had set the target of completing the reconstruction of the damaged schools in three years.
Imnarayan Shrestha, the director of NRA Central Level Project Implementation Unit (Education), admitted the progress in school rebuilding has been slow due to several factors, including lengthy land acquisition process, lack of skilled workers and construction materials and inadequate budget.
A total of 3,613 schools have been reconstructed so far; 75 percent of these schools were built by the school management committees, 15 percent by non-government organisations and 10 percent by business community.
Around 1,700 schools are currently under construction. The government has allocated Rs 12 billion for school reconstruction this year. An estimated Rs 30 billion will be needed to rebuild the remaining schools.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction (JFPR) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and the governments of India and China have also been supporting the school rebuilding projects.