One year of Nepal quake: Thousands yet to get funds to rebuild

Kathmandu, April 25: A year has lapsed since a devastating earthquake left Nepal in the ruins but still several people, particularly the women, are yet to get funds to rebuild their lost property for they do not own land and neither can prove the ownership of the land where they lived, international anti-poverty organisation Oxfam informed last week.

The Nepalese government needs proof of ownership to hand over the funds but several victims have either lost their documents or did not formally own the land where they resided, Oxfam added. The government started providing grants of 2,00,000 Nepalese rupees ($1,900) to the affected families who can produce proof of their ownership of land before the earthquake.

"Families who are landless and who were living on unregistered land are very much uncertain about the future and support that the government had promised," Prabin Man Singh, research and policy coordinator for Oxfam who co-authored the report, said.

Some 3 million people have been staying in temporary shelters with tarpaulin roofs ahead of Nepal's monsoon season, agencies like Save the Children, CARE International and others have said. Land tenure is largely undocumented in the Himalayan country and data is limited and also contradictory, the Oxfam report said.

It said one government report ahead of the quake said nearly 4,80,000 families did not access to land while another report said one-third of Nepal's farmers did not own the land they tilled. As per a United Nations report, about 1.3 million of Nepalese did not own a land or enough land to raise their families.

But Oxfam said that surveys conducted after the earthquake showed more than 90 per cent of the people claimed to own land before the disaster. The women of the country, however, are losing as they are considered less likely to inherit land even though the country's constitution adopted last September has given them same right to own land.

Some 9,000 people were killed in the devastating quake while over 22,000 were injured. Over 9,00,000 houses were also damaged in the disaster.

Donors pleged $4.1 billion for the reconstruction of the quake-ravaged country but the Nepalese government has come under a serious criticism for not quickening the reconstruction efforts.

Oneindia News