By A Staff Reporter

Makwanpur (Khade) Sept. 7: Ekka Bahadur Titung, 57, has nine members in his family.
His big family lives at his home in Khade of Bhimphedi Municipality-9 in Makwanpur district.
Though he has several mouths to feed, he does not worry as he has alternative means of livelihood to sustain his family.
He has learned a skill and received livelihood support programmes from the government and the local organisation working in the social sector.
Titung has also been enlisted in one of the vulnerable beneficiaries list under the reconstruction drive of the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) after his two-storied thatched roof house was destroyed in the 2015 earthquake.
But today, he has a new two-roomed stone-built home as per the design approved by the NRA.
About two weeks ago, when the chief of NRA Makwanpur, and officials from the Centre for Community Development Nepal (CCDN), a local partner of the NRA in Makwanpur reached the village, Titung was waiting for the NRA team and local partner to welcome at his new home and show how he had been engaging himself and his family members in the livelihood support programme.
Titung has been working in his ginger farm, which is a small land area taken in lease by him to cultivate crops, paddy and seasonal cash crops.
His wife, two sons and daughters-in law have been harvesting the mother rhizome with him and they were about to send it to the market. Two of his sons are differently-able. Titung said he wanted to give a final touch to his farm the money he received by selling the mother rhizome.
Although, he had almost completed the construction of his new house under the private house reconstruction drive of the (NRA), he was, however, waiting to receive last and third tranche of grant to be provided by NRA, Makwanpur.
Except for stones, and wood blocks, he had spent Rs. 300,000 to complete his two-storey home. The house still lacks doors, windows and plasters.
“Today, I’m doing all these things because of the livelihood support about doing right agricultural farming in every season, receiving help of the technicians arrived at his village after the earthquake,” Titung said.
He said it was all possible due to Prayas-II project implemented by CCDN in Bhimphedi Rural Municipality, which is working in the sector of reconstruction, and livelihood support programmes.
“I will not have even dared to construct a new home had I not additional support from the government and the local organisations working in the district in coordination with the NRA,” he shared.
He has cultivated 280 kilograms of ginger rhizome in his land. Titung has expected to earn over Rs. 50,000 at one season from the total investment as ginger farming is not a one-time harvesting crops.
Bimal Kishor KP, head at the District Project Implementation Unit (DL-PIU) and Grant Management and Local Infrastructure (GMALI) under the NRA, said that Titung was provided with Rs. 50,000 as additional support from the CCDN in addition to normal Rs. 300,000 support from the NRA, identifying him as a vulnerable beneficiary.
Not only Titung, Gopina Thapa Magar, a resident of Bhimphedi-2 at Kalitar of Makwanpur district, said that she had no time to respond to her customers visiting at her doorstep and phone calls coming from a wholesale shop from Hetauda to supply tomato she had grown at her organic tunnel farm for the past four years. “Being a single woman, I have been eking out my livelihood and even have saved some little for emergency,” she shared.
In Makwanpur district, out of 90,000 applicants, 39,000 have registered their names for house reconstruction. Of them, 80 per cent had already received the first tranche to build their homes, while 60 per cent locals had received their second tranche and 50 per cent beneficiaries received their third and final tranche, KP said.
The NRA has been cooperating and working in coordination with the local partners to give reconstruction drive a pace and support people who were identified as vulnerable and most vulnerable, especially elderly people, single women, and households having differently-able family members.
The local partners have been supporting the NRA by providing additional Rs. 50,000 as top up programme to such community while constructing homes to them, KP said.
The NRA’s local partners like CCDN have also been supporting the NRA in keeping a record of all Ailani (not registered) land in the district so as to take the reconstruction drive fast in the district, he said. So far, 1,883 beneficiaries, who had their houses in the Ailani land, were brought into the scanning and thinking of shifting them to another place, he said.
The NRA has also been providing additional Rs. 200,000 as cash to those earthquake victims, who wished buy land in another place.
Mahendra Bahadur Magar, executive director of CCDN, said that they had been providing financial support to reconstruct houses to 43 families which were identified as vulnerable family members..
“We don’t only provide materials, labourers and transportation support to reconstruct their houses, but we are also supporting them in livelihood programme so that they do not have to remain in the vulnerable category,” Magar said.