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KATHMANDU, April 7: After finding distribution of the grant amount to the quake victims in the 11 quake-hit districts through banking system challenging, the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has started deliberations with the Ministry of Finance and representatives of government-owned banks to explore alternative ways for making the grant distribution convenient to the quake victims.
"The government-owned banks have limited branches in the 11 quake-hit districts and most of them are stationed at the district headquarters. But most of the quake victims are from far-flung villages and it takes days for them to arrive at the district headquarters," said NRA Spokesperson Ram Thapaliya, adding, "So, it is really challenging to provide the grant amount of Rs 200,000 each to such victims."
There are altogether 575 village development committees in the 11-quake affected districts. And majority of the villages are away from the district headquarters with poor road facilities. However, there are only 38 branches of the three different government-owned banks -- Rastriya Banijya Bank, Agriculture Development Bank and Nepal Bank -- and most of them are in the district headquarters and in urban areas of the districts, according to NRA officials.
The NRA has adopted a policy of distributing the grant amount to the victims only through banking channel. On top of that, it is distributing the grant amount in three installments, which means victims will have to face the ordeal of traveling to the bank at least three times to receive the total amount.
Of the total grant of Rs 200,000, the NRA will provide Rs 50,000 to the victims in the first installment, Rs 80,000 in the second and Rs 70,000 in the last installment.
"So, there are many complexities of distributing the grant to the quake victims through government-owned banks. Setting up branch offices in the remote areas will also be costlier while hiring additional staffers for the branches needs bureaucratic procedures involving Public Service Commission. So, we are exploring how the grant distribution can be made convenient," said Bhupendra Pandey, deputy general manager of Nepal Rastriya Banijya Bank, who was also present in the meeting.
As the meeting could not reach a conclusion, the NRA is holding talks with officials of the Ministry of Finance and representatives of the banks on Friday again.
Thapaliya said the NRA and the Ministry of Finance is exploring how private banks could also be involved in the grant distribution process. "Our sole aim is to make the grant distribution process easy and we are working hard to find a suitable alternative to the banking channel," he said.
He also said that the NRA is waiting for Nepal Rastriya Bank to take the initiative of involving private sector in the distribution process.
