A draft of the Final Report on ‘Recommendation for Update of Nepal National Building Code’ was presented amid officials of the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works, Earthquake Risk Reduction Recovery Preparedness Programme for Nepal and other concerned professionals at a program in Kathmandu. The program included presentations of the study made by the Consultants, Mr. B.L. Nyachon, Dr. Prem Nath Maskey, Dr. Govinda Lamichane, Dr. Rekha Shrestha, Ar. D.N. Gongal, Er. Kul Deep Tuladhar and Er. Shamboo B. Shrestha, who spoke on their individual task assigned for the job.

The assignment of the preparation of recommendation report was entrusted to MULTI Disciplinary Consultants (P) Ltd., in association with KD Associates (P) Ltd. and Khwopa Engineering College through an agreement with Earthquake Risk Reduction Recovery Preparedness (UNDP/ ERRRP) Programme for Nepal. The ERRRP Programme for South Asian Region is supported by the Government of Japan under a grant assistance for disaster prevention and disaster reconstruction contributed through the UNDP.

The objective of the assignment were to: a) review and recommend technical additions, alterations and modification to be made in the current code, b) study, analysis and justify for update for the code, c) review general practice of NNBC (implementation) in some municipalities (Kathmandu and Lalitpur), d) study the effectiveness of implementation of NNBC in construction.

The Nepal National Building Code (NNBC), prepared in 1994, is seen more as being presented as an amendment to the Indian Code and has hence lost its value since there is no need to refer to an incomplete code when the Indian Code is handy.