Around 4,000 technicians working for the National Reconstruction Authority in 32 earthquake-affected districts have resigned en masse, saying that they have not received any allowance and facilities for months.

“We waited for long believing that the authority and the government would address our demands, but they showed no response to our demands. So, we have decided to resign,” said Abinash Amar, chairman of the National Reconstruction Authority Technicians Welfare Protection Struggle Committee.

The technicians had been protesting from their respective districts for the past two months. More recently, they had halted their works to put pressure on the government.

The agitating technicians say that though their contract guarantees transportation and communication services, life insurance and dearness allowance, among others, they have received none of these facilities and allowances in the last nine months of the running fiscal year.

On March 26, the struggle committee had warned of resigning en mass if their demands were not addressed. Soon after the ultimatum, the National Reconstruction Authority and the Nepal Engineers’ Association had assured to address the committee’s demands within a week.

Nearly a month has passed, and the demands raised by the technicians remain unaddressed.

“We waited for a whole month for the association and the authority to take steps towards addressing our demands, but nothing happened in that period,” Amar said.

The country marked the fourth anniversary of the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake on Thursday. Four years after the country’s deadliest disaster, in which nearly 9,000 people were killed, much remains to be done to conclude the post-quake recovery works.

The government has announced to complete the rebuilding works within one year—a tall order, given that thousands of workers crucial to the reconstruction process are no longer involved.