The earthquake-affected families in seven VDCs of Okhaldhunga district have still not received the housing reconstruction aid from the National Reconstruction Authority.

The aid is yet to be distributed in Ragani, Pokali, Tarkerabari, Gamanangtar, Phulbari, Kalika and Palapu VDCs.

Given the geographical remoteness of these VDCs from the district headquarters, the NRA has been unable to take the aid to the people. The villagers have been demanding that the aid should be distributed to them in their own villages, for it takes days to get to the district headquarters.

“The government had assured to distribute the aid within 45 days, that was 100 days ago. We still have not received a single rupee till date,” said Sundar Sharma of Ragani The villagers have been pressing their concerned VDC secretaries to make the aid at the earliest.

Ishwor Dhungana, secretary of Palapu VDC, said he has been requesting the local administration to distribute the money as per the request of the villagers, but to no avail.

“The people have been badgering me about the delay in aid distribution and I have no answers for them,” he said.

Chief District Officer Ekdev Adhikari said his efforts to make the aid available in the seven VDCs locally have not succeeded so far as the banks are not ready to set up aid distribution camps there.

“We have requested the Nepal Rastra bank to solve the problem. Maybe if the central bank issued the directive, the banks here will agree to take the aid to these remote VDCs” he said.