45-day campaign of grant distribution to quake survivors satisfactory: PM Dahal

Kathmandu / Oct 26: Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has expressed satisfaction over the distribution of grants to the earthquake survivors, which was launched as a 45-day campaign by the government.

PM Dahal, who is also the Chairman of National Reconstruction Authority Director’s Committee, on Wednesday, directed the concerned authorities to mobilize the Central Bureau of Statistics to conduct survey in the quake-affected 17 districts.

“Officials should be assigned responsibilities of survey in 17-quake affected districts, reconstruction of damaged schools, of archaeological heritages, monitoring of NGOs, relocation of settlement and others,” said the PM during the meeting held at the PM’s Office.

The Secretaries from Finance Ministry, NRA and Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers were directed to ensure effective mobilization of human resources.

According to CPN-UML leader and Committee Vice-Chairman Bhim Rawal, the discussion was held to release Rs 23 billion budget to the NRA. “In order to expedite the reconstruction with adequate budget, better coordination between the Finance Ministry and the NRA was essential. The Committee would hold further discussion on it,” he added.

Leader Rawal said that that reconstruction task should not be taken in a normal way and stressed the need of accelerating the works by mobilizing additional means and resources as per the aspiration and sentiments of the reconstruction and resettlement act.

Similarly, Chief Secretary Dr Somlal Subedi said that the Finance Ministry has been directed to formulate policy to make arrangement for works out of duty hours by providing additional facility to those employees assigned in reconstruction task.

Sharing the information that additional Rs 20.81 billion has been approved for reconstruction task, Secretary at the Finance Ministry, Shantaraj Subedi, expressed commitment that there would be no budget crunch for the same.

Likewise, Secretary at the Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development, Kedar Bahadur Adhikari, said that it would be difficult to sign grant agreement with remaining landlords, out of 533,000 quake survivors, of 11 districts until settlement of different problems including land.

Pressing for legal and policy level management for the earliest and effective post-quake reconstruction drive, he said, “The process to publish the namelist of the house owners in the Kathmandu Valley has been forwarded.”

Executive Chief of the Authority Sushil Gyawali briefed about the implementation stage of the decisions made by the meeting of the Director’s Committee held a month ago.

Similarly, Central Bureau of Statistic’s Director General Sumanraj Aryal was of the confidence that the information collection and compilation of the damages in the quake-hit districts would complete within 45 days.

The meeting has been postponed until Thursday 3 pm as the issues and agendas of the meeting were still in deliberation, shared NRA Chief Gyawali. RSS