More than one-and-a-half years since the Gorkha earthquake, the government has started signing agreements in the Valley for the distribution of the first tranche of the house reconstruction aid.

District authorities and municipalities in Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur have started signing tripartite agreements with the registered households.

Distribution of the aid will begin early next week, said Ganesh Osti, project director at the Central Level Project Implementation Unit under the Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development.

According to him, the process of signing agreements started in Tarakeshwar, Kathmandu, on October 27. As of Friday, some more municipalities and VDCs including Shankarapur in Kathmandu and Karyabinayak in Lalitpur have started singing agreements with the beneficiaries.

“We plan to complete distribution of the first instalment of the aid in the next two weeks in the Valley,” said Osti. A detailed damage assessment has identified 94,000 households in the Valley eligible for the aid. There are 5,000-6,000 households that need re-verification. An estimated 800,000 households in 14 most affected districts were destroyed in the devastating earthquake. The government has decided to provide Rs300,000 as grant for rebuilding a house in three phases.