The earthquake survivors in Gorkha submitted a memorandum to Chief District Officer Jitendra Basnet demanding immediate release of the second tranche of housing reconstruction aid so that they could continue rebuilding works.

They have said that they have lived in temporary shelters for the past 20 months and cannot live that way any longer.

A delegation representing the earthquake-affected families gathered at the district headquarters on Thursday to exert pressure on the government to distribute the second portion of the housing reconstruction aid. The delegation also demanded the government to find a suitable location for the people whose settlements are at landslide risk after the 2015 April earthquake.

Suk Bahadur Gurung, an earthquake victim from Kerauja VDC, said that because of landslide risk, the families from wards 1, 2, 3 and 4 in his VDC have not started building their homes even after receiving the first instalment of the housing aid from the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA).

Another earthquake victim, Som Kumari Thapa, of Gorkha Municipality-7 said the government decision to distribute housing aid by instalments was only prolonging their sufferings.

Had the government distributed the aid in a lump sum, she said, they would already have built their homes by now. Around 52,000 families in Gorkha have received Rs 50,000 each as the first batch of housing reconstruction aid.

Thapa said many families were unable to start house construction because the Rs 50,000 distributed by the NRA was barely enough to pay for transporting construction materials to their villages.

The earthquake-hit people in Gorkha have also criticised the engineers hired by the NRA for going on a strike to demand for incentives and other facilities. Khad Bahadur Sedhai of Dhuwakot VDC-9 said there were no engineers in villages when the quake victims were in need of engineers’ recommendation to apply for the second instalment of the aid. CDO Basnet said the NRA was yet to send the guideline for the distribution of second batch of aid.