Two years ago, Nepal's biggest earthquake in eight decades reduced Padam Bahadur Biswokarma's three-story house in Chautara town of Sindhupalchowk district, a three-hour drive northeast of Kathmandu, to a pile of debris.

The coppersmith, now 61, spent two monsoons under a temporary shelter waiting for the first tranche, or 50,000 rupees ($480), of the 300,000 rupees the government has promised as a housing grant to each quake-hit household.

"The grant never came," Biswokarma lamented.

After running out of patience, Biswokarma recently got the debris cleared and erected a two-story house that has iron frames for pillars, and corrugated sheets for roof and walls. Each story has just one room where Bishwokarma now runs his copperware shop and lives with his wife.

In Badikhel village of Lalitpur district neighboring Kathmandu, Thulo Kaji Pahari waited 22 months for a housing grant from the government. Two months ago, the farmer gave up waiting and started rebuilding on his own.

"I repeatedly submitted papers to claim housing aid. But the process is so complicated that it may take forever," said Pahari, who hopes to move from a tin shelter to his new concrete house with his wife and two children in a month.

Political instability, which has seen Nepal install three prime ministers since the April 25 quake that left nearly 9,000 dead and over a million houses in ruins, has badly hit reconstruction.

Rising prices of construction materials and Prime Minister Prachanda's decision last year to up the housing grant by 50 percent from the earlier announced 200,000 rupees have caused a resource gap of over $3 billion.

Of 626,695 households recognized by the government as qualified to receive the grant, only 3,554 have used it to rebuild their houses, while nearly 19,000 have built houses on their own. An additional 49,681 houses are at various stages of reconstruction, according to figures gathered by the National Reconstruction Authority, set up early last year to oversee reconstruction of houses and infrastructure.

The NRA itself has been a victim of a political tug-of-war. Every time the ruling coalition changes, the body's chief gets changed.

Govind Raj Pokharel, who replaced Sushil Gyewali as the NRA's chief in January this year, admits reconstruction has been slow.

"The country is in political transition. So the focus has been more on managing the transition than reconstruction," Pokharel told Kyodo News, adding that the bureaucracy's chronic inability to spend its allocated budget has not helped at all in the post-quake period.

So far, Nepal has spent just 34.5 billion rupees on reconstruction since the quake struck, not including funds spent by donor agencies and nongovernmental organizations.

In the first year since the quake, the government spent less than 6 percent of the budget allocated for reconstruction, while spending in the second year rose to 44 percent of the allocated budget.

A widespread lack of trained engineers, masons and carpenters has also hampered reconstruction.

Over 10 percent of Nepal's 28 million people work abroad, many of them as construction workers. Many of the quake-affected villages are populated mostly by women, children and the elderly.

Pokharel estimates the government needs to train 60,000 construction workers to speed up reconstruction. The NRA has been able to train more than 34,000 so far, but the training has proved for many recipients to be just jumping pads for better opportunities.

"After receiving training, many left for jobs abroad or in Kathmandu where economic opportunity is better," Pokharel said, adding, "Many households we visited said they haven't been able to start rebuilding houses because there are no masons in their villages."

At a donors' meeting held in Kathmandu in June 2015, countries including Japan pledged $4.1 billion to help Nepal rebuild. Of that sum, agreements have been initialed for $3.1 billion.

That is far from enough. The total loss estimate now stands at $9.4 billion, of which a third is expected to be contributed by beneficiaries themselves. This leaves a resource gap of $3.08 billion.

"For meeting the resource gap, we are planning to hold another consultation with donors on June 25 this year," Pokharel said.

Despite tardy progress, officials are optimistic that if Nepal has sufficient funds the reconstruction deadline of January, 2021 can be met for all structures except cultural heritage and public infrastructure.

"I am confident that private houses will be rebuilt by then," the NRA chief said.

Nepal lost 750 cultural monuments in the quake, of which 20 have been rebuilt while 90 are being rebuilt.

Apparently because of disappointing progress in reconstruction, Nepal will observe a muted second quake anniversary Tuesday, unlike the first anniversary that was marked by holding a variety of official functions.

"There will be no official event to mark the second anniversary. This isn't the time to celebrate. It is time to work," Pokharel said.