The Bara district chapter of Nepali Congress has handed over the relief amount meant for last year’s windstorm survivors to the Coronavirus Infection Prevention, Control and Treatment Fund established by the Province 2 government.

The party had collected Rs 4.75 million to help the families affected by the windstorm in Bara and Parsa districts on March 31, 2019.

Jayachandra Chaurasiya, the Bara district president of Nepali Congress, said the party on Monday handed over the cheque for Rs 4.75 million to Chief Minister Lal Babu Raut so that the amount can be used for Covid-19 preparedness and response.

“The amount was collected to provide relief to the windstorm victims. For that, the central office of the Nepali Congress had provided Rs 2.5 million, party’s lawmakers and leaders of district committees had collected the remaining amount. We handed over the amount to Raut,” Chaurasiya said.

The cheque handover was made in presence of Ramsaroj Raya Yadav, the Nepali Congress parliamentary party leader of Province 2.

“Our party had collected the amount to help the windstorm victims. But since Nepal Army had already taken the initiative to resettle the families rendered homeless by the disaster, we decided to divert the amount to fight coronavirus,” Yadav said.

The party had decided to hand over the amount to the Coronavirus Infection Prevention, Control and Treatment Fund after discussing with all district presidents and the central party office, Chaurasiya said.

Meanwhile, some district leaders of the Nepali Congress have disapproved of the party’s decision to hand over the fund meant for windstorm survivors to help the provincial government in its fight against coronavirus.

“The amount was collected to resettle the windstrom victims. But, the amount was handed over to the Chief Minister without making a decision at the district level,” Manoj Bhatta, a district leader of Nepali Congress in Bara, said.
Leaders in support of the decision have contended that since the fund was lying unused, the party was correct to divert the fund to test and treat Covid-19 patients in the province.

The Province 2 government had formed the Coronavirus Infection Prevention, Control and Treatment Fund on March 31. The government established the treatment fund with Rs 250 million seed money to facilitate efforts to control the spread of the coronavirus.

According to Minister for Internal Affairs and Law Gyanendra Kumar Yadav, provincial ministers have agreed to contribute their one month’s salary to the fund. “The fund will be used to mitigate the risk and also be used to provide relief to those affected by the pandemic,” he said.

So far, Rs 13.6 million has been deposited in the fund, which has helped the authorities in taking different measures to control the possible spread of coronavirus.

According to the data of the Ministry of Social Development, 869 people have been kept in quarantine in various districts. Most of them were placed in quarantine after they returned from India and other countries in the past few weeks.