DHULIKHEL, Dec 26: Most of the houses at the Danuwar settlement at Baluwa, Paanchkhal Municipality-12 in Kavrepalanchok district have cracks from the devastating April 25, 2015 Gorkha Earthquake and in need of urgent reconstruction.
But the owners of these houses have not been able to rebuild for want of the required human and economic resources. The people of the Danuwar community especially in local Bakultar and Baluwa have not been able to reconstruct their homes due to their poor economic condition.
Deputy Mayor of Paanchkhal Municipality, Laxmi Danuwar said that most of the Danuwar people are poor and they cannot afford money required for rebuilding. Although the government has provided Rs 200 thousand for this purpose, this amount is not enough. As a result of this, they are still living in temporary shelters braving the winter cold.
"The Danuwars even cannot afford to buy medicines when sick. It would have been better were there any agencies that would construct shelters for the poor Danuwars," the Deputy Mayor said. She said that the Paanchkhal Municipality is also taking initiatives to that end.
Deputy Mayor Danuwar added that but it would be easy if the reconstruction could be carried out with support of other organisations.
All houses look similar in Sindhuli after reconstruction
She also urged the CEO of the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) and the Chief of the NRA district coordination committee, Dhruba Gainda to facilitate in rebuilding the Danuwar's houses.
"There is no any source of income. We do not have money to rebuild our damaged houses. We are still living in these risky abode," a local Simraj Danuwar lamented.
Although some of the beneficiaries of the government grant got the first instalment for re-building their houses, they have not got the second instalment. They had started rebuilding the houses after getting the first instalment but the reconstruction has been stalled as they could not get the second instalment.
They have not been able to get the second instalment because the engineers refused to approve their houses which they have rebuilt using raw bricks and without following the building standard set by NRA. "We used the raw bricks since the engineer who came to our place for an inspection said that we could use raw bricks for rebuilding our houses," said Parbati Danuwar of Baluwa.
Parbati's family of 13 is living together at the same temporary shelter. They got Rs 50 thousand last July.
Similarly, Sanu Danuwar of the same settlement said that he also have not got second tranche. He said, "I also built a house from raw bricks. The body concerned has not given second tranche saying it was not constructed as per the building standard fixed by the National Reconstruction Authority."
Some 12 households of the same area have also constructed houses from raw bricks as like Parbati and Sanu. These households have not still got the amount after engineer did not give approval to houses saying the houses are not appropriate in view of quake resistance.
Maila Danuwar complained that he did not get the grant amount from Bank even after his name has been enlisted in the list of beneficiaries. He said, "I visited the Panchkhal-based Prabhu Bank for three times. I always got the answer that there is no my name in the list."
Maila further said that there was no situation to build another house due to budget crunch even after having land.
Chief of NRA District Coordination Committee, Dhurba Gaida, said that process has been forwarded to carry out work coordinating with donor agencies for the people of Danuwar settlement.
Out of 180 households in the settlement, most of the families have been living in quake damaged houses.
Executive Chief of the NEA, Yubraj Bhusal, said that Chief at District-based office of Urban Development and Building Division, Astalal Suwal, has been directed to forward process by making the houses build from raw bricks more strong in a technical way.
Out of 72,417 beneficiaries in Kavrepalanchowk, 65,773 beneficiaries have received tranche amount. However, the number of beneficiaries getting second tranche amount is very less.
Only 9,269 beneficiaries have so far received second tranche and 2,893 beneficiaries have received final tranche after completing the construction of houses, as per the data of District Coordination Committee. RSS
