Grant distribution to start from Sunday at last

KATHMANDU, March 11: The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has finally decided to start distributing grant assistance amount of Rs 200,000 from Sunday to each of the victims whose houses were destroyed by last year's devastating earthquake. For that, the NRA on Thursday released Rs 265 million to the Ministry for Federal Affairs and Local Development (MoFALD), which will distribute the grant assistance in three installments to the quake victim families.

“We have released the budget to the ministry for starting the grant distribution from Sunday from Singati VDC of Dolakha district,” said Suresh Adhikari, spokesperson of the NRA.

The NRA has directed the ministry to immediately release the budget to the Dolakha district development committee, according to Adhikari.

In the first phase, NRA plans to distribute the grant assistance to 5,300 quake victim families in Singati area.  

“We have also made agreement with Rastriya Banijya Bank and Nepal Investment Bank for grant distribution. The quake victim families will get the grant assistance from Sunday,” said Adhikari.

Of the Rs 200,000 grant amount, Rs 50,000 will be provided to the victims in the first installment, Rs 80,000 in the second and Rs 70,000 in the last installment.  

Last week, the NRA had deployed a 5-member team on the leadership of NRA members Dhurba Prasad Sharma and Chandra Bahadur Shrestha to Dolakha to carry out all the preparatory works.

As NRA is yet to set up its technical offices in the quake-affected areas, the MoFALD will distribute the grant assistance through the district development committee for the time being, according to the NRA.

Apart from the grant assistance, NRA will also start providing subsidized loans to the victims in Dolakha district. The victims will be provided Rs 2,500,000 as subsidized loans to victims in urban areas and Rs 1,500,000 to those in the rural areas.

Earlier, NRA had planned to start the grant assistance distribution from Singati VDC of Dolakha district from March 3 and Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli was likely to inaugurate the grant distribution. But the NRA decided to postpone the distribution saying preparations were yet to be completed.

Officials at NRA said that the grant distribution, which will start from Singati, will immediately expand to the other quake-affected districts where damage assessment surveys have been completed.

Though the NRA is beginning the grant distribution from Dolakha, the distribution is unlikely to gather pace any time soon as it has still not been able to complete its necessary preparatory works that are prerequisite for beginning the overall task of reconstruction and rehabilitation in the earthquake-affected districts.

The authority has not been able to set up its seven regional offices and technical centers in the quake-affected areas in lack of staff though it decided to establish the offices on January 13.

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