• Out of 72,417 quake victims in Kavre, 65,773 have received the first tranche of govt grant

Dhulikhel, December 26

Most of the houses in the Danuwar settlement at Baluwa, Paanchkhal Municipality-12 in Kavrepalanchowk have developed cracks due to the devastating 2015 earthquakes and are in need of urgent reconstruction.

But owners of these houses have not been able to rebuild for want of human and economic resources. People of the Danuwar community, especially in the local Bakultar and Baluwa areas have not been able to reconstruct their homes due to their poor economic condition.

Deputy Mayor of Paanchkhal municipality Laxmi Danuwar said most Danuwar people are poor and cannot afford the required money for rebuilding. Although the government has provided Rs 200,000 for this purpose, this amount is not enough. As a result, they are still living in temporary shelters braving the winter cold.

“The Danuwars cannot even afford to buy medicines when they fall ill. It would have been better if some agencies constructed shelters for the poor Danuwars,” the deputy mayor said. She said Paanchkhal municipality is also taking initiatives to this end.

Deputy Mayor Danuwar added that but it would be easy if reconstruction could be carried out with support of other organisations.

She also urged the CEO of the National Reconstruction Authority and the chief of the NRA district coordination committee Dhruba Gainda to facilitate in rebuilding Danuwars’ houses.

“There is no source of income. We do not have money to rebuild our damaged houses. We are still living in these risky abodes,” Simraj Danuwar lamented.

Although some of the beneficiaries of the government grant got the first instalment for re-building their houses, they have not got the second instalment. They had started rebuilding the houses after getting the first instalment but reconstruction has been stalled as they could not get the second instalment.

They have not been able to get the second instalment because engineers refused to approve their houses which they rebuilt using raw bricks and without following the building standard set by the NRA. “We used raw bricks since the engineer who came to our place for inspection said we could use raw bricks to rebuild our houses,” said Parbati Danuwar of Baluwa.

Parbati’s family of 13 is living together in the same temporary shelter. They got Rs 50,000 last July.

Similarly, Sanu Danuwar of the same settlement said that he also had not got the second tranche. He said, “I also built a house with raw bricks. The body concerned has not given the second tranche saying the buildings were not constructed as per the building standard fixed by the National Reconstruction Authority.”

Twelve families of the same area have also constructed houses raw raw bricks like Parbati and Sanu. These households have still not got the amount after the engineer did not approve to houses saying the houses are not appropriate in terms of quake resistance.

Maila Danuwar complained that he did not get the grant amount from the bank even after his name was put in the list of beneficiaries. He said, “I visited Panchkhal-based Prabhu Bank three times. I always got the answer that my name was not in the list.”

Maila further said he could not build another house due to budget crunch even though he owned land.

Chief of National Reconstruction Authority District Coordination Committee, Dhurba Gainda, said the process has been forwarded to carry out work by coordinating with donor agencies for the people of Danuwar settlement.

Most of the 180 families in the settlement are living in quake damaged houses.

Executive Chief of the NEA Yubraj Bhusal, said that Chief at District-based office of Urban Development and Building Division, Astalal Suwal, has been directed to forward the process by making the houses built with raw bricks stronger in a technical way.

Out of 72,417 beneficiaries in Kavrepalanchowk, 65,773 beneficiaries have received the tranche amount. However, the number of beneficiaries getting second tranche amount is very less. Only 9,269 beneficiaries have so far received the second tranche and 2,893 beneficiaries have received the final tranche after completing construction of houses, as per the data of District Coordination Committee.