Price of conflict costing state in excess of Rs. 2.5 billion

The Himalayan Times - Price of conflict costing state in excess of Rs. 2.5 billion - Detail News

Added At: 2011-03-31 6:07 PM

Last Updated At: 2011-03-31 6:07 PM

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

LEKHANATH PANDEY

KATHMANDU: As the saying goes, conflict comes at a cost. Nepal’s post-conflict approach to assuage the decade-long conflict-victims reflects it truly.

The state coffers have already been depleted by at least Rs. 2.5 billion just to give a nominal relief package to some of the thousands of victims of the Maoist insurgency, and the cost continues to rise.

Data prepared by the Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction (MoPR) showed that it has delivered an amount of Rs. 1.4 billion as relief to the kin and kith of 14,064 people who died during the rebellion. It is yet to allocate relief to the remaining 2655 people who suffered the same fate. It means that the state would have to pay at least another Rs. 265 million to the remaining victims’ families.

Relief and Rehabilitation Unit at the MoPR has set a criterion of allocating Rs. 100,000 to the family of every single person killed during the conflict. A total of 16,719 people have been reported dead in the conflict.

“We have already sent necessary relief fund of 14,064 deceased persons to District Administrative Offices concerned to provide relief to their families,” said RRB Division Chief at MoPR Ganesh Prasad Upadhaya. “The remaining will soon get the relief package.”

The relief package costs the state more than Rs. 1 billion for those affected by the conflict, including disabled, disappeared, abducted, dependents, including children and widows. Only 29,000 internally displaced persons out of 78,675 have received nominal relief and compensation from the government and have been resettled in their own place. It has already cost the state at least Rs. 340 million, and the remaining two thirds will certainly cost nearly twice the amount.

At least Rs. 100 million has been used as compensation for some 11,775 cases of physical infrastructure destroyed. Likewise, Rs. 130 million has been expended as relief to the kith and kin of 1302 people who disappeared. The amount has been mobilised through Nepal Peace Trust Fund, a donor-funded Trust to address the post-conflict relief and rehabilitation issues.

An account of the victims in different categories had been prepared by the RRU, based in MoPR, with the help of inter-governmental agencies and the relief fund has been distributed through the local channel. Upadhaya, however, said that RRU had faced the challenge of identifying the true victims of the conflict.

In addition to the relief package, a whopping 5,560 physical infrastructure had been destroyed during the conflict. Only 1,968 has been rebuilt at a cost of more than Rs. 3.7 billion from the coffers.