Kavre, March 1

Earthquake victims of Bhumlutar and Phalante in Kavre, who had missed out on contract signing for reconstruction grant earlier for want land ownership certificates, are now upbeat as the government has begun contract signing for the grant.

“The government’s decision to provide us with reconstruction grant has elated us and given hope of a new life,” said victim Motilal Lama of Bhumlutar.

Kishor Bahadur Adhikari of Phalante expressed similar feelings saying, “It has been a nightmare living in the open all these months, especially with the kids, women and elderly. But thank god the government has finally heard our plight and is doing the needful,” he said.

According to Bhumlutar VDC secretary Ramesh Prasad Dawadi, the contract for reconstruction grant has been signed with 225 of the total 589 victims sans land ownership documents in the village. “Contract signing with the rest of the households is under way,” he said, adding that the victims will start getting the first instalment of the grant from next week.

Contract signing in the villages started from Thursday, taking into account the quake victims’ identity cards, government engineers’ official verification of damage caused by the quake and the receipts of regular payment of land revenue.

Earlier, in the wake of their exclusion from the contract signing process, the concerned victims had reached out to the District Land Revenue Office to apply for land ownership certificate. Officials at the district-based government bodies had then visited the victims in the villages to learn about their situation.

Hundreds of households in Bhumlutar and Phalante VDCs were left without landownership certificate owing to a dispute in the creation of these VDCs as a result of the split of then Pipaltar VDC back in 1975/76.