NRA to support vulnerable, marginalised survivors

Kathmandu, April 27

The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has raised its concern regarding Amnesty International’s recent report titled ‘Building Inequality: The Failure of the Nepali government to protect the marginalised in Post-Earthquake Reconstruction Efforts, 2017’.

Issuing a press statement, the NRA today said that though the reconstruction progress has been slow, the government and NRA — the focal agency for post-earthquake reconstruction work — have remained vigilant of the fact that disasters disproportionately affect women, poor and marginalised communities including people with disability. “In order to help the marginalised and poor communities, NRA has begun simplifying procedures for distributing aid,” the statement added.

“There has been no discrimination among the victims. NRA recently decided to distribute Rs 200,000 to around 10,000 identified landless victims to purchase land on top of the Rs 300,000 that the government is providing as grant for the reconstruction of houses,” NRA stated.

The NRA statement further said that the study to identify vulnerable settlements conducted under the leadership of the Authority has recommended that more than 2,751 families need to be relocated to safer places.

“In addition, NRA has taken a series of measures to proactively assist women, poor and the marginalised communities. Vulnerable communities receiving housing assistance from I/NGOs or government are eligible to receive an additional Rs 50,000 from I/NGOs,” according to NRA. “Vulnerable communities opting for low-cost housing can access the second and third instalments from I/NGOs even if they have received the first tranche of grant from the government without any hassle.”

NRA also said it has given high priority to women and vulnerable communities in livelihood training and capacity building schemes and a significant number of women have participated in mason training programme and are helping build houses in their respective affected regions.

Similarly, NRA has also been settling the grievances that it has received from all the affected families in a timely manner so as to include all genuine earthquake affected households in the government’s grant net, as per the statement. NRA has also made a commitment to make this third year (since the earthquake), a year of concrete reconstruction that touches the lives of women, poor and marginalised communities.