Stung by the glacial pace and complexity seen in Dolakha’s Singati in its effort to sign aid agreements with affected households, the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has backtracked on its own decision to distribute housing grant from its resource centres. Instead, it will now distribute aid from Village Development Committee offices in earthquake-affected districts.

The reconstruction body said the previous decision—to distribute housing reconstruction aid through the resource centres comprising four or five VDCs—was reversed to ease the aid distribution process. “From now on, aid agreements will be signed directly between the VDCs and quake-affected households. Aid will be released to the victims through banking systems once local bodies provide details of quake-affected households,” said NRA Spokesperson Ram Thapaliya.

The NRA had launched the signing of aid agreement at Resource Centre in Singati, Dolakha meant to oversee six VDCs. But the signing process was halted with complaints and protests from VDC secretaries of being stretched too thin. Secretaries also demanded additional financial incentives to do the job.  

Under the revised process, the reconstruction authority is now preparing to sign agreements with VDCs of Okhaldhunga, Ramechhap, Sindhuli, Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading, Gorkha, Makawanpur, Kavre and Sindhupalchwok districts.

In addition to this, the local bodies are told to simplify aid agreement process to facilitate even those earthquake-affected households who have lost their citizenship card, land revenue certificate and other legal documents after consulting with local representatives.

 The pace of aid signing agreement in Dolakha was very slow as local disputed the NRA’s list of beneficiaries.

Out of the 5,300 households identified as needy of aid under the Singati Resource Centre, the NRA has signed agreements with only 641 households. During its work in Singati, the NRA received more complaints than agreements it signed with the displaced families. More than 700 households from Laduk and Lamidanda complained of being left out of the beneficiaries’ list. Singati Resource Centre covers six VDCs in Dolakha.