Out of 7,563 families displaced by the flooding, only 312 are yet to receive the Rs 50,000 home return package. Yet hardly any of these families have started the homeward journey so far. They are still clinging to make-shift tents, said an official at the Natural Disaster Section of the Home Ministry.
Senior officials at the ministry are considering cancellation of the monthly family allowance of Rs 5,077 for those who do not return home. But they are not sure what to do next.
According to Ishwor Raj Regmi, under-secretary at the ministry, the government has been providing the monthly allowance to the families since March this year after the World Food Program (WFP) stopped feeding them.
The government wants the flood victims to return home before it grants them further compensation for damage to their properties.
Most homes categorized as green after a survey by a task force led by parliamentarian Nandan Kumar Dutta* can become usable after general manual maintenance. Homes categorized yellow require a little more work to make them suitable to live in again. The government grants are meant even for homes categorized red and that were completely destroyed by the flooding.
"Returning home means a higher level of safety for them than living in tents," said Regmi, who is worried that unless proper rehabilitation is done, problems will keep arising no matter how big the compensation sums doled out.
The then Maoist-led government had approved the latest compensation package based on a report by the Dutta* panel that comprised representatives of political parties and local agitating groups.
The government has also prepared an action plan to distribute the funds. The compensation amounts for damaged homes range from Rs 50,000 for a thatched house and Rs 100,000 for a single storey house topped with corrugated sheets to Rs 200,000 for double storey topped with corrugated sheets.
Likewise, those who lost their land in the flooding are entitled to compensation of Rs 600 for each maund (some 56 kg) of the estimated paddy harvest. The paddy harvest is calculated at the rate of three maund for each kattha (3,645 square feet) of land.
Flooding in the Koshi on August 18, 2008 brought down a dam in Sunsari district and flooded four VDCs. The water displaced thousands of people besides sweeping away their properties.
Meanwhile, the flood havoc in western Nepal last year seems now to have been forgotten.
Though floods hit the western Tarai last year after the east was similarly affected, the government´s response to the west has not gone any further than preliminary rescue action to the tune of around Rs 80 million. It is estimated that overall compensation and rehabilitation in the west would require Rs 2.5 billion, but the government is yet to release the funds despite having agreed to do so. Even a Rs 270 million package for rehabilitating 1,500 families there has not materialized owing to lack of budget resources.
* (Corrected)
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