HAMI organised policy discourse on reconstruction on 28th of March, 2017. The discourse focused on the issues of post quake reconstruction, current status of National Reconstruction Authority (NRA), structure and working modality of NRA. Members of legislative parliaments Hon’ble Jagadish Narshing KC, Chandra Maharjan, Pashupati Chaulagain and Pemba Lama participated on the discourse. Experts closely involved in reconstruction, disaster and human rights attended the discourse. Parliamentarians raised the concern that NRA is a weak entity under the domination of bureaucracy. The reconstruction budget is burden to the line Ministries as they are unable to spend their own development budget. Ex- CEO of NRA Mr. Sushil Gyawali said that authority needs the approval of the finance ministry to implement any plans and activities and the whole process is too procedural and time-consuming, the authority has no decision making role as such. Gyawali was sacked by the Prachanda-led government describing his performance as unsatisfactory but Gyawali revealed that if NRA remained with the same power and guidelines as now, there is no future of reconstruction whoever the CEO is. Experts stated that if the existing working practices continue, it will be very difficult to give momentum to the reconstruction and rehabilitation activities. The discourse suggested for a powerful autonomous Reconstruction Authority to speed up the reconstruction process.
