Ramechhap, November 13

Many quake victims in Ramechhap have not received the second and third tranche of housing grant yet.

It is said that technicians deployed in municipalities remained busy designing house maps to earn extra bucks and failed to do their assigned work on time due to which quake victims could not get housing grant.

To get the second and the third instalment of housing grant newly built houses should be inspected by a technician deployed by the government. Then the inspection report should be sent to the National Reconstruction Authority through district-based National Reconstruction Authority Coordination Office.

However, the NRA said it didn’t receive any report from the local bodies for the past three months.

Padam Bahadur is one of those many victims in the district, who have already the construction of their houses but have not received the remaining instalment yet.

Earlier, District Project Implementation Unit under the Ministry of Urban Development had directed technicians not to engage in the map drafting task. However, these things have gone unabated. As per the rule, it is mandatory to approve the map for reconstruction of damaged houses in municipalities. However, it is not compulsory in rural municipalities.

Technicians deployed in rural municipalities are seen visiting municipalities seeking map drafting task for monetary gain.

Engineer Krishna Chalaune said technicians seemed apathetic towards other tasks except drafting house maps.

Ramechhap Municipality Mayor Nar Bahadur Magar said they were planning to draft similar types of maps and provide to victims free of cost to discourage the misconduct of technicians.