RAUTAHAT, JUNE 11

Some 32 households displaced by the erosion caused by the Bagmati River in Rautahat decades ago have been relocated.

About 33 years ago, the floods in the Bagmati River and subsequent erosion had displaced scores of families from their homes in Badaharwa village of Durga Bhagawati Rural Municipality-5.

The families with poor financial status have been staying on the embankment of the river ever since.

Decades after they lost their homes, Durga Bhagawati Rural Municipality has relocated them by buying the required land from its fund. Though the local level had purchased the land necessary for relocation last year itself, the families have now shifted there and starting making their houses after they were provided with land.

Kaushilya Devi, who was one of the victims, said she was glad getting a plot of land to settle down. "It's a great relief to find a place to live in finally after living on the embankment for all these," she said, adding that her family and other families were working to make a house to live in.

According to Durga Bhagawati Rural Municipality Chairperson Arun Kumar Sah, some two bigha of land was bought to accommodate the displaced families. "We distributed seven dhur land to each of the families.

We are thinking of building a school building in the rest of the land, around one bigha," he said.

Further, Sah also informed about the municipality's plan to help those families to make their homes in the upcoming fiscal.

A version of this article appears in the print on June 12, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.