Laxman Rawat of Bheri Municipality-1 Rawatgaon of Jajarkot, who has been living in a temporary shed for one and a half years after his house was destroyed by the earthquake, is now worried about how to avoid the night and morning rush.

After the government delayed the reconstruction, he along with his wife Virta went to the nearby Rimna market to load and unload the goods of the vehicles. "If the government had built permanent housing, they could have left their families and gone to India to earn money," he said, "22 months have passed in the hope of building a house, but if they had told them to build a house themselves, they would have built a house through loans." 

His neighbor Poorna Bahadur Rawat is also affected by the government's delay. His two minor sons were buried in the earthquake and died. "A family of 6 people has to live in the same room by self-isolation. Clothes and other belongings are also damaged. When it rains, the tin leaks and we can't sleep. When the sun shines, the tin heats up and it makes us nervous," he said. . Due to the delay in the detailed damage assessment (DDA) for the reconstruction of the earthquake-affected areas, the reconstruction work has been confused.

According to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, the earthquake damaged around 76,000 houses in Jajarkot and Rukum West. Out of that, nearly 33 thousand beneficiaries have been established in Rukum West and 43 thousand in Jajarkot. For which 118 technicians including 20 from the authority were deployed.

District Administration Office Jajarkot administrative officer Samir Gautam said that even though all the DDAs have been completed, their classification is yet to be done. According to him, 15 months after the earthquake, DDA work was started from February last year. 

But even after almost 7 months, the report of DDA has not come. He informed that for the reconstruction, the ward office should make an agreement with the beneficiary and send the recommendation of the beneficiary to the district disaster management committee through the local disaster management committee (local level).

"We will verify it, only then the Reconstruction Authority will send us the budget," he said,  "Only after the budget comes, we will send the reconstruction funds to the relevant local level." 

According to the preliminary survey conducted by the local level after the earthquake, 43 thousand 86 beneficiaries of seven local levels have received the first installment and 36 thousand have received the second installment after submitting a report on the damage of about 48 thousand houses in Jajarkot. 

According to the District Administration Office, reconstruction, repair and strengthening will be done based on the DDA report. Surveer Lohar of Nalgad-1 Chiuri said that when the roof started leaking, they began to suffer. "There is a fear of landslides on the roof and from Dil," he said, "We are forced to stay awake all night when it rains."

The government has made a procedure to give four lakh rupees per family for the reconstruction of private housing. It is mentioned in the procedure to give two and a half lakh rupees for strengthening and one lakh rupees for general maintenance. 

Some of the earthquake victims have complained that they were left out because the local government did not register the beneficiaries in the disaster portal. "Our house didn't get DDA due to lack of entry in the portal, our name didn't appear on the list when the house was supposed to be built," Chakra Bahadur Vick of Nalgad-7 said, "those who can build their own houses, those whose houses are usually cracked and have 2/3 space houses got DDA, we poor people were left out."

25 organizations left 

After the earthquake, 25 organizations that entered Jajarkot to facilitate relief, rescue and temporary housing have left their working area. They left Jajarkot saying that the reconstruction work was delayed. 

Karnali Integrated Resource Development Center (Kirdak), Manohari Development Institution, Joint Recovery, Action Plan, Giraffe, Social Awakening Center (SAC), Integrated Rehabilitation Center, Bheri Environmental Specificity Group, Needs Nepal, Rural Society Development Center, RRN and other organizations have been expelled, according to the district administration office. 

Earthquake-affected people came to work in the areas of livelihood, education, health, drinking water, sanitation, etc., but they returned because of lack of environment to work, said Sahdev Basnet, president of Federation of Non-Governmental Organizations, Jajarkot. 

"Those organizations came to provide various support to the disaster victims, nearly 300 local people also got jobs through those organizations," he said, "even though they came with various programs to be done along with the reconstruction work, there was no choice but to return when the reconstruction did not pick up speed."