Kavre, February 23

Earthquake victims of two VDCs beyond the Koshi region finally received the first instalment of the government grant for reconstruction of their damaged houses in Kavre today, nearly two years after the earthquakes of 2015.

Quake victims in many other districts have already received the second instalment of the grant.

A team comprising Kavre Chief District Officer Shiva Simkhada, Local Development Officer and District Natural Disaster Rescue Committee Chairperson Tek Raj Niraula, and National Reconstruction Authority’s district Chief Dhruba Gauda started distributing the grant in Bhumlutar and Phalate VDCs from today.

Quake victims of these two VDCs had been deprived of the grant due to the lack of their land ownership certificates.

According to LDO Niraula, the grant agreement was signed after beneficiaries furnished identity cards verifying their status as quake victims, documents prepared by engineers detailing their losses, and land revenue bills.

Earlier, the government had directed the authorities concerned to distribute relief to all earthquake victims before mid-September last year.

But chief of the district reconstruction authority had taken stock of quake victims in these VDCs only in mid-February this year, 21 months after the disaster.

Victims have expressed happiness at the distribution of the grant .

As many as 600 households of the two VDCs had been deprived of state grants so far as they didn’t have land ownership certificates.