The District Disaster Management Committee meeting held on Wednesday has taken various important decisions regarding the reconstruction of houses of the victims who were left homeless after the earthquake that struck Jajarkot on Kartik 17, 2080. Although 4 of the 6 decisions were directly related to the municipality, the mayor and deputy mayor of the municipality except for one person did not participate in the meeting.

Chief District Officer Dinesh Prasad Thani said that serious discussions were held on the complaints and grievances regarding the Detailed Damage Assessment (DDA) conducted after the earthquake. 

According to him, in the first decision, a four-member team coordinated by the concerned ward chairperson will be deployed for the DDA to investigate the complaints and applications received. In the second decision, a complaint has been filed with the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority and the District Administration Office that the real victims were left out, non-victims were recommended and beneficiaries were established. Since there have been widespread public complaints, it is necessary to conduct on-site study, analysis and technical evaluation as per the procedure and establish beneficiaries, a four-member technical evaluation committee will be formed under the coordination of the ward chairperson of the concerned ward. 

While conducting technical evaluation as per the Disaster-Affected Private Housing Strengthening, Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Grant Procedure-2081, the third decision states that priority will be given to beneficiaries whose houses were destroyed by the earthquake and who were beneficiaries without prior agreement and without technical evaluation, and requesting the concerned local level to conduct technical evaluation and submit a report.  The fourth decision states that an orientation program will be organized as needed to maintain uniformity in the reconstruction work to be done by the local level in the district. 

However, the implementation of the decision has been challenged as the mayors or representatives of other municipalities, except for the deputy mayor of Athabishkot Municipality, were not present during the mentioned decision. District Magistrate Thani said that he informed the municipal chairmen on time about this matter, but the meeting was not effective due to lack of participation. ‘We had sent the information about this meeting to all municipalities through a letter last Thursday. But the municipal chiefs did not come,’ he said, ‘Now, we will inform them about this decision and take necessary steps for its implementation.’ 

According to the District Administration Office, Rukum West, a total of 30,850 beneficiaries have been assigned DDA in this district. Under this, it has been decided to reconstruct a total of 11,297 houses and strengthen the remaining 19,553 houses. In addition, the ward has already signed agreements with some of these beneficiaries as per the work procedure. But the process has come to a halt here. 

The municipality is saying that the remaining work of all the beneficiaries who have DDA should be carried out and work should be done for reconstruction, while the District Administration Office has raised the issue that DDA should be done again as a complaint has been filed with the Authority on this issue. Therefore, the misunderstanding between the local level and the District Administration Office is increasing. As a result, it can be easily assumed that the municipalities were not present in today's meeting. However, the municipal heads have not given a clear answer on this issue.