Two years on, Kavre still has a long way to go

Kavre, April 24

Exactly two years have passed since the 2015 earthquakes ravaged the country and Kavre is still struggling to pick itself up. With delay in grant distribution and bureaucratic hurdles, a report says that only 30 per cent of the reconstruction work has been completed so far.

Gururaj Ghimire of Panchkhal municipality said he has been waiting for the second instalment of the state-granted relief for six months now. “We began reconstruction after receiving the first instalment, but now we have had to stall all construction for months because the government has not distributed the second instalment yet,” he said.

Officials at the District Development Committee said that the delay in grant distribution was because they had not received ‘guidelines’ from the authority concerned. “We need some guidelines to distribute the grant,” said Local Development Officer and District Natural Disaster Relief Committee Coordinator Komal Dhamala, pledging that the second instalment will be distributed by mid-May.

On its part, the Dhulikhel-based regional office of the National Reconstruction Authority laid the blame on engineers who have reportedly not yet submitted the list of names of victims eligible to receive the next instalment of the grant.

The NRA had listed 70,634 households as eligible for the government grant. Of them, 61,085 families have signed the contract for the first grant instalment, of which 52,284 families have received the grant.

Reconstruction has yet to begin in 10 out of the total 65 then VDCs of the district. As per data with the Urban Development and Building Division Office, around 2,000 houses are being reconstructed now. Around 400 victims have sought the second instalment of the grant. Over 1,000 others began reconstructing their houses on their own.