Karnali, March 9: Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak has said that the disaster risk reduction and management authority has been handed over to the province government.
Addressing the Provincial Emergency Warehouse Handover Programme in Birendranagar, Surkhet today, he said the right under the policy, directive and responsibility of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) has been delegated to the province.
According to him, now there is no need for the province to ask the NDRRMA for its permission at the time of disaster and the province government will itself manage the disaster management works.
“The government has managed emergency warehouse in all the seven provinces attaching high priority to disaster risk reduction. We will make arrangement for constructing such emergency depots at the local level also as the local government is closest to the people,” the Home Minister said.
He added that the NDRRMA as well as the National Council presided over by the Prime Minister and the Executive Committee, coordinated by the Home Minister, have been carrying out works becoming sensitive to disaster risk reduction.
According to the Home Minister, reconstruction and rehabilitation works have been intensified based on the details of structures damaged by the earthquakes that struck on various dates last year in Doti, Bajhang, Bajura and Jajarkot.
Home Minister handed over the Provincial Emergency Warehouse at Itram, Birendranagar Municipality-7 in Surkhet to Karnali Province Chief Minister Yamlal Kandel, in writing.
Chief Minister Kandel said that not only the warehouse facility, the federal government should be ready to also hand over the related entity and the rights associated with it to the province.
Stating it took seven years for handing over the emergency warehouse to the province government, he urged the federal government to also manage the required budget for operating the warehouse.
NDRRMA Executive Chief Bhishma Kumar Bhusal said that the responsibility of mobilizing humanitarian goods had been given to the Home Ministry before this, but the disaster management rights have been now decentralized in the context of the NDRRM Act determining the rights of all the three tiers of the government.
