After the house was completely destroyed due to the earthquake, the family of five of Lanka Bahadur Chand of Sanibheri Rural Municipality-1 in Rukum West has been living in a temporary tent for 2 years and 5 months. 'We are living in a cramped tent like a single room, eating, sleeping, storing clothes and food,' he said. 'We have spent the third winter and two rainy seasons in the tent with difficulty. When a new house will be built, nothing is certain. It is certain that the coming rains will also be spent in the tent.'

Having spent almost a month and a half in a tent, he complained that he has received only Rs 50,000 in two installments from the government in the name of relief to build a temporary house.

Nandaram Mahar of Rawatgaun, Bheri Municipality-1, Jajarkot, said that he has spent two and a half years in the hope that a new house will be built. ‘It is time for the hut to collapse,’ he said, ‘The government is still not interested in building a house, how long will we live in the hut?’ His family of five is also living in the hut. According to him, the tin hut around the hut leaks even when it rains and at other times the heat makes it impossible to enter. He complained that after spending two years in the hut that was about to collapse, he was forced to stay in the hut for weeks due to various health problems. His wife Manasara and eldest daughter Anjana have been suffering from fever for a week now.

After losing their jobs due to the earthquake, the earthquake victims complain that they are now facing problems in earning a living. Dhan Bahadur Bik, 39, of Chiuri, Nalgad-1, Jajarkot, who had been going to India to work as a laborer for a decade until before the earthquake, said that the burden of debt was increasing due to the delay in reconstruction. ‘When they said that they needed a house to build a new house, they could not even go to India, nor was there a guarantee that the house would ever be built,’ he said, ‘There is no work around the village, we are borrowing money from neighbors to cover family expenses.’ He complained that nearly 250,000 rupees had been added to the debt since the earthquake alone.

157 people lost their lives in the earthquake that struck Jajarkot on Kartik 17, 2080. 57 people died in the first year of the earthquake due to cold in their tents, while 21 people died in floods and landslides. But even two and a half years after the earthquake, reconstruction work has not started. The incomplete completion of the Detailed Damage Assessment (DDA) in both districts has increased the risk of freezing the nearly Rs 4 billion released for reconstruction.

30,850 beneficiaries have been identified in Rukum West. Even though an agreement has been reached with the wards for the construction of houses by making a DDA, the reconstruction work has not progressed as the District Administration Office has said that a new DDA is required. So far, it has been decided to reconstruct 11,297 houses and strengthen the remaining 19,553 houses. For which, some wards have already signed agreements with the beneficiaries as per the 'Affected Housing Reconstruction, Strengthening and Rehabilitation Procedure-2081'. The procedure mentions that Rs 400,000 will be given to the beneficiaries for reconstruction and Rs 50,000 for strengthening.

Local level people's representatives have blamed the Chief District Officer of Rukum West, Dinesh Prasad Thani, for the main responsibility for the reconstruction. On April 14, Pradya Thani had written to the Ministry of Home Affairs requesting that the DDA be re-conducted as there were complaints that the details of beneficiaries were left out during the DDA as per the procedure and details of beneficiaries that should not have been included were included. The letter states that it is necessary to deploy technicians on site to conduct the DDA again and collect the details of the actual beneficiaries and prepare a list of beneficiaries. Chief District Officer Thani said that at least 12 civil engineers have been demanded for the DDA to be re-conducted. _{A house damaged due to the earthquake in Sanibheri Rural Municipality, Rukum West.}

Similarly, on April 22, the District Administration Office had addressed all six local levels of Rukum West collectively, stating that ‘during the DDA, real victims were left out and non-victim beneficiaries were included, beneficiary selection and recommendation were made based on financial/political gains, and the local levels concerned refused to register complaints/grievances, and since complaints have been filed with the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority and the office on this matter, work according to the procedure.’

The dispute between the local levels and the District Administration Office has increased since the local levels want to take the beneficiaries under the previous DDA forward for reconstruction and the Chief District Officer will only move forward by re-DDA. Birkha Bahadur Bista, Chairman of Sanibheri Rural Municipality of Rukum West, complained that they are tired of running from the district administration to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, requesting reconstruction.

‘The CDO has stopped the reconstruction work, saying there is a problem in the DDA,’ he said, ‘While technicians were deployed from the Disaster Management Authority to carry out the DDA, now they have stopped the budget that was about to come by blaming us.’ According to him, the procedure states that the reconstruction money will be transferred to the accounts of the earthquake victims only after the District Disaster Management Committee, chaired by the Chief District Officer, approves the agreement with the beneficiaries in the ward.’ Narendra KC, a civic leader who was actually affected by the earthquake due to the dispute between the local level and the District Administration Office, said. ‘The temporary shelters of the earthquake victims have reached a point of collapse. If the government had paid attention, the reconstruction work could have been completed by now,’ he said, ‘The victims are living in the shelters at their own risk, and the reconstruction is still not finalized.’

Keshav Oli, Assistant Chief District Officer of Rukum West, claimed that DDA will not be done again for the beneficiaries who have already been DDA. ‘DDA will be done again only in those places where complaints and grievances have been received,’ he said, ‘The office’s intention is to move forward with the reconstruction without raising any questions rather than affecting it.’ He informed that a meeting of the District Disaster Management Committee has been called for this on Wednesday.

40,041 beneficiaries have been identified for reconstruction in Jajarkot. The government had provided Rs 50,000 in two installments at the rate of Rs 25,000/25,000 for temporary housing for earthquake victims. Out of them, only about 25,000 have received the second installment. But some earthquake victims have started building their own houses, saying that the government has neglected the reconstruction.

In Khalanga, Bheri Municipality-1, located in the district headquarters, about 100 people have already built their own houses, said Ward Chairman of Bheri Municipality-4, Basanta Prasad Sharma. ‘The amount promised by the government was not enough, there was a delay,’ he said, ‘Many who could build houses themselves have already built houses, and there are still about 100 houses under construction in the market.’ Pushpa Shah of Bheri Municipality-1 said that after being released during the DDA, they were forced to build their own houses. ‘When the government was relying on us, it was not certain when the houses would be built, and we were released under the DDA with political bias,’ he said, ‘That is why there was no option to build our own houses even if we had to take loans.’

In Nalgad Municipality-4, out of the nearly 450 houses under DDA, about 50 families are building their own houses, Ward Chairman Badri Pant said. ‘The earthquake victims were panicked by the government’s delay,’ he said, ‘Some houses have been built without the advice of technicians, some are building houses in coordination with us.’ Jajarkot Chief District Officer Khadananda Adhikari said that although the reconstruction process of 621 beneficiaries of Bheri Municipality has progressed, the work of other municipalities has not been completed.

According to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, the DDA report shows that 14,245 private houses need to be reconstructed and 12,744 houses need to be repaired (fortified) in Jajarkot. The Chief District Officer said that families undergoing fortification will receive a maximum grant of three hundred thousand rupees. ‘We had sent the authority a request for funds for reconstruction in the last Shrawan, but no decision has been made yet,’ he said, ‘Since the Genji movement, the reconstruction work has been at a standstill, which made it seem like the earthquake victims will spend this rainy season in tents.’ He said that the authority has also been requested to re-DDA the 5,014 beneficiaries who were exempted from DDA from Bheri Municipality.