There was a striking contradiction between two headlines in the news yesterday. On the one hand, the prime minister’s disaster relief fund is bulging with money. On the other hand, survivors of the Bhote-Koshi flood in Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading are far from all staying in safe shelters, nor have all received the pledged state relief money.
The massive torrent of water, mud, rock and debris, which turned Trishuli river into an unreal scenery of destruction on August 26, washed away over 7,500 houses in the three districts put together. Around 4,500 survivors sought refuge in makeshift shelters. Yet at present, less than 1,000 remain in the tents.
Most survivors have moved out, in most cases to nearby settlements or rented flats in Kathmandu, but only out of practical necessity. Many have decided to leave the shelters because the tents or tarpaulins proved unfit for habitation for any longer period of time. This was clear to many from the outset and during recent rains.
Many made the shift despite lack of sufficient financial means. The government pledged 15,000 Nrs. a month per household as a food and housing grant in mid-September until resettlement could begin. However, so far many have not received any. Instead, they have scraped together what little they had or sought help from relatives and friends, even taken loans.
Those who still remain in the shelters, most concentrated in Rasuwa, are now left fearful of the approaching winter.
The survivors in the three districts have in common for the most part that they have lost everything: family members and friends as well as houses, land and livelihoods. Whole local communities are gone, buried under mud and debris. So are large tracts of agricultural land as well as schools and health posts. Bridges and roads have been washed away.
The destruction goes beyond the town and village. Lack of local infrastructure has dramatically interrupted the local economies and interaction with the outside, making it extremely hard to make an income, so badly needed in order to move on. The bus doesn’t go, trucks cannot deliver goods, workplaces are gone. It is hard for most to see a clear road ahead.
It’s been over one month since the flood, yet still there is a long way from the immediate rescue operations, which were praised by many, to even organising proper shelter for the survivors, let alone reestablishing a semblance of local community and a functional local economy. In this light, it would seem reasonable to ask: why is the process so slow?
It is not because funds are not available to do more. As the other news article yesterday reported, the prime minister’s Relief Fund balance exceeds Nrs. 16.15 billion. In fact, government officials are busy trying to raise even more funds. Yet, this fund-raising effort is apparently not matched by the same determined effort to release the relief money and put it to use.
Official records show that a mere Nrs. 1 billion rupees have been released from the PM’s Relief Fund so far. Or just 6 percent.
Considering the urgency of the situation, it seems fair to ask why expenditures from the Relief Fund is so slow and minimal. It is important to underline that the release of funds does not necessarily equate actual expenditure of the money. If recent news are anything to go by, many survivors in the three districts are indeed still awaiting the Nrs. 15,000 relief grant.
Would it not be possible to take action more swiftly and distribute the means to where they are so urgently needed? Slow public expenditure is common in Nepal. In this case, some of the inhibiting factors will be well-known from other cases.
The first major factor is centralised control which inhibits the ability of local government bodies to respond to local needs. A good example is the procedure for distributing the Nrs. 15,000 food and housing grant. The government announced the decision to provide the grant on September 13, and a week later the formal procedure had been decided upon.
This procedure repeats a common principle, which is to require the local level to have operational decisions approved at upper-levels. In fact, every application for the food and housing grant has to travel through several levels. This is clear at a glance. The formal route starts at the ward level and goes all the way to the provincial level and back again:
Household – ward office – local government disaster committee – District Administration Office – NDRRMA/provincial authorities – local government – payment. If approved by the local disaster committee – a multi-party committee – the application starts its journey upwards. Only those without housing in their own or their family’s name are entitled.
Few applications have completed the journey through the levels until now. This will come as no surprise in light of previous experience. Processing applications through such a high number of levels often takes time. Officially, the justification for involving the higher levels is to ensure that only eligible survivors receive the fund. Yet, it can also cause serious delays.
It can even allow higher-level officials to exert influence on the actual allocation at the local-level, causing further delays.
A contributing factor to the slow pace is a complicated technical mechanism for releasing the grant money. Official stamp as a flood survivor without a home requires field inspection by local officials who might not even have a local office left to work in. Yet an obstacle is that to receive payment, one must be able to do banking, despite the infrastructure collapse.
Centralised control of relief materials which is kept locally at district collection centers also plays a role. It is a long way from here to the local communities where the materials are needed. This is due to heavily damaged infrastructure but also an age-old system of making the district headquarters the local center where locals must travel to get help.
Fourthly, planning on what land to construct for more permanent resettlement is a slow-moving process. In fact, as of now, no formal plan has been produced. Formal procedures will require not only a plan but also consultations with companies on what houses to build, which designs, in what locations, and much more. It all takes time.
Meanwhile, survivors will have to make by and try to prepare for the upcoming winter. The urgency felt by the survivors to solve their most basic problems of temporary shelter and income seems to contrast with the pace of the government. Indeed, there are many legitimate obstacles – not least logistical – yet could the pace not be higher?
As the Bhote-Koshi aftermath has yet to move into its resettlement and reconstruction phase in earnest, this main question is worth revisiting continuously. It will be important to follow the actual release of relief grants and the planning of resettlement. Will registration of survivors and payments drag on; and what about construction of resettlement housing?
Will the PM’s bulging Relief Fund continue to grow bigger while actual utilisation remains low and slow?
Update: On October 8, it was reported that the procedure for registering survivors eligible to the relief money has only just been distributed to the local governments, although some registration has been conducted already at local level. It was also announced that the government – still without allocated land for resettlement – has invited NGOs to suggest house designs.
