Kathmandu, July 13

The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has registered a total of 99,302 complaints lodged by quake survivors of 11 affected districts as of today.

The number of complaints has been increasing despite NRA’s effort to settle the grievances of the quake survivors. NRA had enforced Complaint Redressal Guideline to address the complaints of quake survivors. However, not a single complaint has been addressed since the guideline came into effect on July 1.

“We have already circulated the information to village development committee (VDC) secretaries, municipal officers, chief district officer (CDO)s and chiefs of sub-regional offices of NRA to address the complaints, but they have yet to start work,” said Ram Prasad Thapaliya, spokesperson for NRA.

The guideline has envisaged four-layer mechanism to settle the complaints collected from the 11 quake-hit districts. VDC-level mechanism led by the VDC secretary and comprising representatives from ward citizens forum is the first layer to address the complaints.

Complaints that cannot be settled at the VDC and municipality levels will be transferred to the district level, where the guideline has envisioned a committee led by the CDO and comprising local development officer and district chief of police, among others.

The complaints that cannot be settled through the district level mechanism will be transferred to the NRA’s sub-regional offices that will receive the grievances and address them.

The final authority to address the complaints is NRA’s head office. The authority has so far trained 22 engineers to address complaints that have been transferred to NRA head office.

“The complaints that arrive at the NRA head office will be addressed after proper examination of the images of the concerned houses,” as per Thapaliya.

Survivors of 11 quake-hit districts, where beneficiary survey had been commissioned, have lodged complaints that they have been excluded from the list of beneficiaries that would make them eligible to claim housing grant of Rs 200,000 being extended by government.

As many as 16,606 complaints have been received from worst-hit Dolakha district, 15,355 from Gorkha, 13,000 from Sindhuli and 12,775 from Ramechhap. Meanwhile, 9,511 complaints were lodged in Sindhupalchowk, 9,009 in Nuwakot, 7,744 in Dhading, 5,651 in Okhaldhunga, 5,298 in Kavre, 3,907 in Makawanpur and 446 in Rasuwa.

NRA’s beneficiary survey has deemed 531,937 households eligible to obtain the government’s aid to reconstruct their houses damaged in last years’ earthquakes. A total of 34,879 households have received 25 per cent or

Rs 50,000 as first tranche of the grant. This means only 6.5 per cent of the identified beneficiary households has received the first instalment of the government’s aid.

The NRA recently initiated beneficiary survey in Kathmandu Valley. It has already concluded the survey in Lalitpur district, where 1,218 households have been listed as being eligible.