HEAVY LOSSES IN NEPLA VIOLENCE

HEAVY LOSSES IN NEPLA VIOLENCE

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RAJIV NAYAN AGRAWAL

DELHI-------------------------Assessment of the damage caused by the recent violence in Nepal is ongoing. So far, the army and government institutions have not received the full report, but according to preliminary estimates, the loss in government movable and immovable property alone is about Rs 50 thousand crores. The loss of private property is being said to be different and much more than this.

Major damage to government properties. Parliament House of Nepal. Secretariat (Singh Durbar). Supreme Court. Assemblies of half a dozen states. Rashtrapati Bhavan. Homes and offices of ministers. Official residences of MPs. National Bank of Nepal. Many important tourist places, museums and national symbols. More than 3 thousand government vehicles were burnt, along with important government files were also destroyed.

Arson, looting and vandalism in half a dozen big hotels including Hotel Hilton. Multi-storey buildings of leaders and their families became targets. Nepal's largest retail chain Bhat-Bhatini was burnt and looted. Property worth more than Rs 100 crore was looted. Showrooms of many vehicles including Tata were burnt. Large scale looting in big jewellery shops.

More than 100 small and big cities were hit by violence. Kathmandu, Pokhara, Chitwan and Biratnagar have suffered the most damage among them.

The devastation in Kathmandu is so extensive that it may take many years to compensate for it. The burnt buildings will now be evaluated to see if it is possible to repair them or they will have to be completely demolished and rebuilt.

This time the damage to government property has been about a hundred times more than in the 2015 earthquake. Without foreign aid, the reconstruction of Kathmandu and Nepal is not considered possible soon.