Dolakha, April 17

The Thami Community at Damarang, Bhimeshwor Municipality, have halted reconstruction of their houses that collapsed during the 2015 earthquake, in Dolakha. They are waiting for the second instalment of the government grant and have no option but to halt construction due to lack of money.

Hit by financial crunch, 43-year-old Tulasa Thami has been helping with reconstruction of her neighbour’s house.

“We were constructing our house as per the engineer’s advice, but we had to stop after we ran out of the Rs 50,000 grant given by the government and  the Rs 200,000 loan we took also finished,” Tulasa said.

Tulasa, who has three daughters and two sons, says she has been facing a tough time since her husband passed away last September.

Another local, Chandra Bahadur Thami, said that he stopped reconstruction of his house in the final stage. “At least five families have stopped reconstructing their houses in the final stage due to lack of budget,” he said.

Sundar Kumar Thami, who just completed building the foundation of his house, says he is waiting for the second instalment. “We have to build the house as per the government’s recommendation. Hence, we are waiting for the grant as we have run out of money completely,” Thami said.

Many locals said that it costs around Rs 800,000 to build a house as per the government’s recommendation. Reconstruction Authority District Coordination Committee Dolakha, however, said that it has started distributing the reconstruction grant of the second installment.

Sagar Acharya, chief of the Secretariat Office said that the office would provide the grant after the locals showed the technicians their houses.

Phanindra Thami of Damarang complained that though it had been more than two months since they said he would be given the second instalment, he has not yet received it.

According to the Reconstruction Authority, 9,000 houses have been reconstructed in the district so far. A total of 3,700 have applied for the second instalment.

As many as 43,000 households required reconstruction after the 2015 earthquake in the district.