Over 19,000 more grant beneficiaries

Kathmandu, July 5

The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has endorsed the names of 19,471 additional beneficiary households that are eligible to receive the housing grant of the government being provided to the victims of the devastating 2015 earthquake.

With the addition, the total number of households eligible for the grant of Rs 300,000 has reached 807,486. These new beneficiaries are from 63 local units of 11 highly quake-affected districts.

Similarly, NRA has also added 15,766 new households in the list of beneficiaries who are eligible to receive Rs 100,000 in retrofitting grant of the government.

Meanwhile, NRA has also declared 11,475 households that had registered their complaints at NRA as ineligible for the housing grant.

“NRA has been carrying out a survey again across the country after receiving 237,085 complaints claiming that they were missed in the initial survey of the government though their houses were severely damaged by the quake,” said Manohar Ghimire, deputy spokesperson for NRA.

The authority has reviewed 205,584 complaints so far.

NRA will sign grant agreement with these added beneficiaries in coordination with local governments. After that, these households will receive the Rs 300,000 housing grant in three tranches.

Though the deadline to collect first tranche of housing grant for beneficiaries has already passed and all beneficiaries of the housing grant need to collect all the tranches within next fiscal, Ghimire clarified that such provision will not be applicable for the households added to the list of beneficiaries.

So far, NRA has signed grant agreement with 721,168 beneficiaries, while 712,680 beneficiaries have already received the first tranche of housing grant. Similarly, NRA has approved second tranche of housing grant for 463,062 beneficiaries and the third tranche for 228,896 beneficiaries.