Not tents, India to supply thousands of pre-fabricated shelters to Nepal

NEW DELHI: India will offer to supply thousands of pre-fabricated shelters to Nepal to house people whose dwellings were destroyed by last month’s earthquake and help assess the loss caused by the disaster to the country’s economy. India’s proposal will be an “improvement” over Nepal’s requirement of only tents, a senior government official told ET.

“During the visit of National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and foreign secretary S Jaishankar to Nepal last week, Nepal requested tents and blankets as nearly 4-5 lakh houses have been destroyed and people are literally living on the roads. Shelter is the biggest challenge. India will be offering pre-fabricated tin shelters as they are much better than tents in durability as well as to withstand vagaries of the weather like rain and storms,” the government official, who was in Nepal for the rescue effort, told ET.

He added that India has the capacity and expertise to manufacture such pre-fabricated shelters, which will be better for the thousands of homeless people in the long run as reconstruction would take time. The official also said India has offered a Post-Disaster Need Assessment (PDNA) exercise to help determine “the loss to Nepal’s economy” due to the earthquake and suggest measures to bring the country back on track.

“PDNA is usually done by a group of experts and UN agencies. We also have expertise in the same and will offer our help to ascertain shelter, food, healthcare, sanitation and water needs of Nepal. We will also help Nepal in certifying their buildings – like schools and hospitals – to ascertain if they are safe or need demolition or improvement as many buildings have cracks,” the senior official said.