Ramechhap, May 21

Earthquake victims in Ramechhap are unhappy with ‘negligence’ shown by the engineers deployed in the villages to collect details of damage wrought by last year’s earthquakes.

Earlier, the Department of Statistics through a non-governmental organisation named Heart had commissioned engineers to collect data in the village.

Local Bir Bahadur Karki, of Tilpung, said, “In various places of the district, the engineers missed out many houses that were damaged in the quakes,” he said, adding that more than 300 houses damaged by the earthquakes were missed out in Tiplung VDC alone.

Amidst the discontent among Tiplung locals, VDC secretary Ishwori Bahadur Karki, who had reached there for the signing of reconstruction grant agreement, was forced to return empty handed after the villagers refused to cooperate.

“When I reached the village with complaint forms and grant agreement papers, the villagers refused to cooperate saying they wouldn’t sign the papers until the all the affected households would be included on the list of victims,” said secretary Karki.

Local journalist Badri Nayanghare conceded that the data collection had been erroneous. “It is natural for the villagers to protest as list of grant receivers does not include genuine victims while names of those who are not even from the VDC have been listed,” he said.

Nepali Congress acting district president Jhapadraj Bhandari sought recollection of the data.