President Bidya Devi Bhandari on Saturday officially kicked off government reconstruction works—nearly nine months after the first big earthquake shook the country on April 25th, 2015. The post-quake response, first of the Sushil Koirala government and now of the KP Sharma Oli government, has been inadequate. The much-hyped National Reconstruction Authority could not be formed for the longest time, owing to differences between Nepali Congress and CPN-UML, as each sought to pack the authority with its yes-men and thereby bag lucrative reconstruction contracts. When the authority finally got its new head this past Christmas, there were doubts about his independence and competence. The official inauguration of reconstruction on Saturday does nothing to allay such suspicions. Sushil Gyenwali, the new CEO of the authority, has suggested that even preliminary task of identifying earthquake victims remains incomplete and it might take at least a couple of more months to complete this task. Then a detailed damage assessment report will be prepared. Only then, we are told, will reconstruction start in earnest.The government says it started reconstruction works from the damaged Balgopaleswor temple at Ranipokhari at the heart of Kathmandu as it already has a master-plan to rebuild the whole area. The implicit message, however, is that it is unaware of the actual number and distribution of earthquake victims. So the government assurance does not cut ice among the around 600,000 people who are still camped out in temporary tents that provide little protection against either rain or cold. Children and elderly are falling sick; some have even died of hypothermia and other cold-related illnesses. Given, nearly half the country has been in turmoil for the past five months over differences over the new constitution. Such internal fissures in Nepal then gave India the pretext to impose a crippling economic blockade on the small, landlocked country. Along with fuel and medicine, even relief material for earthquake-affected have been stuck on Nepal-India border, for months on end. The acute fuel shortage made the task of getting even what little relief material that could be mustered to earthquake victims extremely hard. Even with all these limitations, the kind of incompetence and callousness of our political leadership to earthquake victims that has been on display of late is still hard to justify.
Now it looks like it will still be months before they can rebuild their broken lives. Beautification of Kathmandu can wait. Not those who are battling for their lives, against the elements out in the bitter cold. We can only hope that now the reconstruction campaign is officially underway, the process of rehabilitating earthquake victims will finally get some momentum. As we have seen, if the new authority can come up with credible plans, there will be no shortage of international donors: they had together pledged nearly US $4 billion during the international donors meet in Kathmandu last June. Largely owing to its callous attitude to earthquake victims, the public anger against the government is slowly building. This anger is further fuelled by the government's clear reluctance to crack down on black marketers; and by the tardy pace of its talks with the agitating groups in Madhesh. Only earthquake victims, it seems, are in a hurry.
Related story
Fire the corrupt people
