By Indira Aryal

Kathmandu, Feb. 8: “I am Gopal Dahal from Pokhara, Kaski district. I received the first tranche eight months ago, but have not received the second installment yet. So, I am calling to ask you when I can receive the second installment.”
“I am Kalyan Kumar Basnet from Likhu in Solukhumbu district. My name has not been published in the list of beneficiaries; I am a real victim of the April 2015 earthquake. There was a survey about six months ago in my area but the results are pending. May I know they will be out?”
“I am Krishna Basnet calling from Shailung in Dolakha district. There was a survey in my area by the Nepal Reconstruction Authority and I have complained about the condition of my house from time to time but I have failed to receive any relief funds from the government. How can I get the relief funds from the government? I want to know what is happening about the distribution of relief to the earthquake victims like me. I am calling to ask whether my name has been included in the list of beneficiaries.”
The phone sets at the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) toll-free section keep ringing in the last year of the reconstruction drive. Two staff members are busy receiving complaints and queries about the distribution of grant installments, budget allocation and enrollment of names in the list of beneficiaries.
Till date, 36,820 complaints and queries have been registered with at least 50 phone calls in a day, said Astha Acharya, a toll-free operator at the NRA. The toll-free numbers have been in operation for the past three years launched with an aim to provide information to earthquake survivors in the course of reconstruction of houses and other structures damaged by April 2015 Gorkha earthquake.
One of the earthquake survivors who is also physically challenged, 29-year old Kalyan Kumar Basnet from Solukhumbu, said that the information provided by the toll-free section was not of much of to clear his query. He had queried whether his name had been included in the beneficiary list after a survey was conducted in his village some three months ago. He said was suggested to lodge his complaint at the District Reconstruction Unit, which further confused him.
According to Acharya, some queries could be answered easily but some required accessing the MIS (Management Information Systems) database maintained by NRA in order to provide specific answers. “With respect to some queries, we ask the survivors to contact the district units of NRA or even to appeal to the Appeal Committee set up by the NRA for reconsideration of their concerns,” explained Acharya.
Majority of queries that come to the section are about inclusion of names in the beneficiary lists while some are about survey results and distribution of grant installments. “If we cannot provide answer to the queries, we send the complaints to the NRA secretariat and the secretariat further investigates into the complaints or queries,” Acharya said.
“The list of complaints which cannot be addressed will be forwarded to the concerned unit. For example, the quarries or complaints about education sector will go to the education section,” NRA sources said.
“Besides the complaints received through toll-free numbers, over 600,000 other complaints were received from 32 districts. Some of the complaints have been registered at the local levels, some in districts and some in the central level,” said executive chairman of NRA, Sushil Gyawali.
There were 306,858 complaints in the first phase of the survey, 125,410 in the second phase and 189,000 in the third phase, Gyawali said.
“Of the total complaints, only 22,000 remain to be addressed, and they will be addressed within 10 days. We won’t take any more complaints in NRA, but the NRA’s Appeal Committee is open to register their complaints any time.”
In the latest survey, only 20 per cent claimants are real beneficiaries while over 80 per cent complains are fake, he informed. With the greed of getting relief fund from the government, they enrolled their names showing the houses not actually damaged by the quake, Gyawali said.
Construction of Dharahara going on smoothly at Sundhara, Kathmandu.