1. Housing and Human Settlements
Summary
The sector of housing and human settlements was affected the most. The total effects (damages and losses) are valued at NPR 350,379 million, with the total damages amounting to NPR 303,631 million and the total losses estimated at NPR 46,748 million.
Computing Damages and Losses: Damages are defined as the combined replacement cost of destroyed houses, the repair cost of partially damaged houses, the replacement cost of household goods destroyed, and damages to the real estate sector. Losses are the combined cost of demolition and clearing, costs of provision of transitional shelter, rental losses, and losses sustained by the real estate sector.
The assessment targeted the 31 districts that were declared affected by the Government of Nepal (GoN).The 2011 Census provided the baseline and the Nepal Government Disaster Risk Reduction Portal (http://drrportal.gov.np/)1 of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) provided information on housing damage. A total of 498,852 houses were categorized as fully collapsed or damaged beyond repair and 256,697 houses were partly damaged. The estimated damage and losses are presented in Table 1.1.
Recovery and Reconstruction Needs: Based on the damages and losses, the recovery and reconstruction needs were estimated to be NPR 327,762 million. These include the costs of providing transitional sheltering, permanent housing reconstruction with structural resilience, demolition and debris clearance, repairs and retrofitting, clustering of dwellings to safe locations, training and facilitation, and urban planning, including heritage settlement planning.
Housing and settlements have been reviewed to ensure the disaster resilience of the entire community keeping in mind aspects of location-based vulnerability. The data for clustering of dwellings to safe locations in all the affected districts could not be verified at the time of preparation of PDNA. Clustering cases require careful and detailed analysis of landslide risks and socio-economic impacts, along with close consultation with impacted communities.
The recovery of the housing sector would be based on the principles of equity, inclusion and community participation through an ownerdriven reconstruction (ODR) approach to build back better. Depending on the extent of damage, affected families will receive support in reconstructing, repairing and retrofitting their houses, in the form of financial assistance, technical guidance, social mobilization and skill upgrade. Financial assistance in tranches will be based on compliance with disaster-resistant construction guidelines as laid down by GoN.
For remote areas, heritage settlements and urban areas, special assistance packages may be considered over and above the basic recovery package.
Providing handholding support to owners will require a well-defined human resource set-up of master artisans, junior and senior engineers, and community organizers, coordinated at the Village Development Committee (VDC), district and national levels, respectively, and guided by a Technical Committee. This will also help regenerate the local economy. Further, clustering of communities should be exercised only in special circumstances.
House owners will have an opportunity to construct their houses in the building typology and size of their choice by adding resources from their own savings or labour provided the construction complies with GoN’s disaster-resistant construction guidelines. From a settlement planning view, reconstruction also presents an opportunity to upgrade living conditions.
The total number of houses to be reconstructed has been calculated on the basis of number of households made homeless. Considering the average number of households per house for each district, the total requirement came to 609,938 houses. This number may change after the muchneeded household assessment of damages.