The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has assigned one bank each for a group of several villages and municipalities to ensure swift and easy distribution of housing reconstruction aid. The NRA has also formed clusters, comprising banks and financial institutions operating in each of the 11 earthquake affected districts for the purpose.

“The Authority has clustered the banks and financial institutions operating in each affected district and divided the work responsibilities. Each bank or financial institution will look after specific number of villages and municipalities,” said Ram Prasad Thapaliya, spokesperson for the NRA.

Each banking and financial institution in each district will look after a certain number of wards/villages/municipalities to ensure that all the areas are covered and no one is left out, he added.

The NRA has also made arrangements for opening bank accounts of the beneficiaries of the rebuilding aid in bulk at the local level without the presence of the respective beneficiary. “This will be possible through the personal information collected by the NRA during the assessment. They will be forwarded to the respective banks and financial institutions to carry out further works to open bank accounts,” Thapaliya said.

In order to expedite the distribution of reconstruction aid to the affected households, the NRA has already decided to extend assistance through opening branchless services, including cash counters and rotational camps, in places where there are no facility of banks or financial institution.

“We have already started the work and are in talks with banks and financial institutions on ways to reach out to the remote areas through branchless services to distribute rebuilding aid to the affected households,” Thapaliya said.

As of Thursday evening, a total of 24,428 households in seven of the 14 worst hit districts from last year’s earthquakes have received the first instalment amounting to Rs50,000. The NRA has signed the tripartite agreement under which 223,830 out of the total 533,454 households from 11 quake affected districts to provide the first instalment of the aid.