Only 0.42 received housing grant

Kathmandu, June 12: Fourteen months after the devastating earthquake rocked the country, only 0.42 per cent of the people whose houses were damaged in the tremors have received the first installment of the housing reconstruction grant.

They got Rs. 50,000 out of Rs. 200,000 that each quake victim is entitled under the housing reconstruction grant provided by the government.

According to the Central Programme Implementation Unit at the Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development (MoFALD) and Sub-regional Offices of the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA), out of 473,012 households in severely hit 11 districts identified as the eligible to receive the grant money, only 2,004 households had been able to receive the first installment of the grant by Saturday.

Approximately 1,237 households in Dolakha, 765 in Gorakha and 2 in Sindhupalchowk were lucky to receive the money.

The money has been deposited into the bank account of the respective quake-affected household.

The severely hit districts include three districts of the Kathmandu Valley, Dolakha, Dhading, Nuwakot, Gorakha, Sindhupalchowk, Makwanpur, Kavre, Ramechhap, Sindhuli, Okhaldhunga and Rasuwa.

"However, there has been much progress in forging grant agreement with the households that were rendered homeless by the earthquake," said Reshmi Raj Pandey, spokesperson of the MoFALD.

The MoFALD and NRA data show that the government has signed the housing grant agreement with 72,145household so far, approximately 15.25 per cent of the total damaged houses.

The agreement is signed between the secretary of the respective VDCs and house owners.  The agreement process is ongoing in 11 severely-hit districts outside the Kathmandu Valley.

"According to the Sub-regional Offices, grant agreement process is on the final stage in Ramechhap and Okhaldhunga districts which will be completed by the next week. Agreements were concluded in 43 and 46 VDCs of Ramechhap and Okhaldhunga respectively," NRA spokesperson Ram Prasad Thapaliya informed in a press release.

The reconstruction body is yet to conduct study to collect the details of the damaged houses in the Kathmandu Valley and other districts.

The government, NRA and Development Committee of the Legislature-Parliament have directed the Local Development Officers at the districts and VDC secretaries to give the grant agreement a top priority.

The grant distribution process caught more speed after the lawmakers criticized the government, line ministries and NRA for their sluggishness in handing over the money to the victims.

Ramechhap is the district where housing grant agreements were signed with the large number of households where the agreement was forged with 31,804 households. However, none of them have received the money yet.

The agreement is signed with 14,202 households in Okhaldhunga, 13,258 households in Dolakha, 4,850 in Gorkha, 3,000 in Sindhupalchowk and 2,098 households in Dhading. 

Published in The Rising Nepal.