'Houses built post-quake in Dolakha too small to live in'

By Babu Ram Sharma,Dolakha, Mar. 29: The earthquake victims of Dolakha have said that they are not satisfied with the two or single room houses built for them after the 2015 earthquake. 

Those private houses rebuilt according to the government standards lack adequate space to live in, they said. 

The main problem of the earthquake victims is that they lack place to accommodate guests in their small houses, prompting them to rent rooms of other houses.   

Pema Gyalbu Lama, a resident of Bhimeshwor Municipality-9, had built a two-room house adding some money to the government grant. Now Lama is not happy to stay in her new house because it has only two rooms. “The house becomes narrow and small when all family members gather, and they have no other rooms to sleep,” Lama said. 

The government has allowed to build any kind of earthquake-resilient houses, but most of the earthquake victims built two-room houses. The single women built single-room homes. Now, they have realised that both two and single room houses are only to show the government rather than living with family members.  

A farmer needs space to store food crops and tools in their houses, but they cannot store them in their two or one room houses. The earthquake victims have built separate cow sheds for day-to-day use and old temporary huts to store agriculture products, they said. 

Bishnu Prasad Subedi, resident of Bhimeshwor Municipality-17, had taken a loan of Rs. 1.7 million at the interest rate of 15 per cent from the bank to build a three-room house, but he said that it was still congested. The houses were built in a short time.  

In Dolakha, 3,000 earthquake victims have received certifications after completing construction of their houses. But many of them are still staying in their old huts, which they had built immediately after the earthquake, because of lack of sufficient space. 

Keshar Bahadur Tamang had built a two-room home from the government grant. Because of lack of enough rooms, Tamang still lives in his old hut. He has been using the new home to store crops and other agricultural products. 

Out of 72,819 beneficiaries in Dolakha, 68,569 had signed agreement for the government grant to build private houses. 

Of them, 66,969 have received the first instalment and the construction works of 7,655 houses have been completed.  Likewise, 3,000 earthquake victims have received construction completing certificates. 

The earthquake victims who received the first instalment from the government have started returning it to the government. Around 154 beneficiaries have already returned Rs. 50,000 of the first instalment.