Sindhulimadhi, April 30

The signing of grant agreements for the reconstruction of houses that were damaged in last year’s devastating earthquakes has yet to pick momentum in Sindhuli.

The National Reconstruction Authority has started signing grant agreements for reconstruction of houses in one VDC each of three constituencies of the district.

Sindhuli locals complained that carelessness on the part of engineers had caused errors in data collection.

They said many quake victims were missing from the victims’ list while some non-victims were figured in the data.

Earthquake victims in Jhangajholi VDC said signing of agreements were moving at snail’s pace.

Bhutte Sharki, 80, of the VDC, rued the government’s indifference towards resettling the quake victims.

“We stayed in temporary huts for a year, but the government is still taking its own sweet time to begin reconstruction works,” he said.

The signing of agreements was delayed in the district after the government decided to provide grants only to 1,200 victims although as many as 1,400 victims had received relief distributed in two different phases in Jhangajholi VDC.

VDC secretary Leknath Dhakal said the signing of agreements started after NRA decided to investigate into the disputes. NRA Sindhuli branch Officer Rajendra Karki said as many as 1,178 quake victims were expected to sign the grant agreement.

“We will complete the task in Jhangajholi VDC by mid-May,” he informed.

It is said that NRA would provide the grant to 21,114 quake victims in Sindhuli.