Natural Disaster Relief Act 1982
To Manage Disaster

By Lekh Nath Pokharel

BEFORE the advent of Natural Disaster Relief Act, 1982 A.D. there was no well structured disaster management policy in Nepal. Prior to 1982 A.D. relief and rescue works were carried out as the social works only. It has already been amended twice in 1989 A.D. and 1992 A.D.

Natural Disaster Relief Act, 1982 A.D. defines Natural Disaster Relief Work as any relief work to be carried out in the area affected or likely to be affected by the natural disaster in order to remove the grief and inconvenience caused to the people, to rehabilitate the victims of the natural disaster, to protect the public property and life and property of the people, to control and prevent the natural disaster and to make advance preparation thereof.

However, Natural Disaster Relief Regulations could not yet be formulated and due to which Natural Disaster Relief Act could not be fully effective as Natural Disaster Relief Act, 1982 does not describe the duties and responsibilities of all the disaster management related agencies other than the Ministry of Home Affairs. So duties and responsibilities of various other disaster management agencies have to be reflected in Natural Disaster Relief Regulations as each and everything could not be stipulated in the Natural Disaster Relief Act. According to Natural Disaster Relief Act, 1982 there has been a provision for the formation of Central Natural Disaster Relief Committee. Furthermore, there is also the provision of a Relief and Treatment Sub-Committee, Supply, Shelter and Rehabilitation Sub-Committee, Regional Natural Disaster Relief Committees, District Natural Disaster Relief Committees and Local Natural Disaster Relief Committees. Relief and Treatment Sub-Committee, Supply, Shelter and Rehabilitation Sub-Committee shall be activated in the time of very serious and huge natural disasters while Central Disaster Relief Committee and District Disaster Relief Committee are active all the time. Recently, Regional Natural Disaster Relief Committee have been formulated in all five Regional administrators' offices under the chairmanship of the regional administrators.
Central Natural Disaster Relief Committee has been constituted under the Chairmanship of the Home Minister in order to formulate and implement the policies and programmes related to the natural disaster relief work and to undertake other necessary measures related thereof. The Central Committee may constitute Relief and Treatment Sub-Committee and Supply, Shelter and Rehabilitation Sub-Committee which provide necessary advice and suggestions to the Central Committee to help execute policies and directives of the Central Committee and operate effectively the rescue, relief and rehabilitation work during a very serious and huge natural disaster. The working procedures of the Relief and Treatment Sub-Committee and the Supply, Shelter and Rehabilitation Sub-Committee may be managed by themselves. However, the functions, duties and responsibilities of the two Sub-Committees shall be as specified by the Central Natural Disaster Relief Committee.
The Central Natural Disaster Committee plays vital role in disaster management in Nepal. The main functions and duties of the Central Natural Disaster Relief Committee are: to recommend to His Majesty's Government to declare the areas affected as the disaster area, to formulate the national policy regarding the relief work including the rehabilitation of the victims and the reconstruction in the areas affected by natural disaster etc. and for the control and prevention of natural disaster and the advance preparation thereof and to prepare the programmes in accordance with the said policy and submit it to His Majesty's Government, to keep the money, food stuff, clothes, medicines, construction materials and other goods received within the Kingdom of Nepal and from outside as aid or donation under the Central Natural Disaster Aid Fund and to send such goods in the affected area, to associate the social organisations in relief work and to coordinate the activities of those organisations, to form groups and send them to area to assist in relief work, to give direction to the district committee and local committee on the matters relating to relief work, to perform the works specified by His Majesty's Government for the execution of natural disaster relief work, to submit progress report of work to His Majesty's Government from time to time.

The Committee has formulated some norms for immediate relief assistance to the victims of the natural disaster in cash or kind. The amount and quantity of such assistance may be revised from time to time. According to the present norms specified by the Central Committee, Nepalese Rs. 10,000/- shall be provided as relief assistance to the family of a dead victim. Injured persons shall be provided the facility of treatment in the nearest governmental hospital or health post. Provision of a Central Natural Disaster Aid Fund has been made under the control of the Central Natural Disaster Relief Committee. The central fund releases budget to the Fund according to the need and justification for immediate rescue and relief assistance to the victims of the natural disasters.

Formulation of national policies and their implementation, preparedness and mitigation of disaster, immediate rescue and relief works, data collection and dissemination, collection and distribution of funds and resources are vital functions of the Ministry of Home Affairs. It has its network throughout the country to cope with the natural disasters. Each Chief District Officers are the crisis manager at the time of natural disasters as well as he is the chairman of District Disaster Relief Committee.
The Ministry of Home Affairs is the key agency for immediate response during disasters and has to play a leading role in managing the natural disasters in the country. Last year, His Majesty's Government of Nepal decided to establish a separate Department for Narcotics Drug Control and Disaster Management to carry out the disaster management activities more effectively and efficiently.

NGOs And INGOs Working For Street Children

NGOs generally serve two broader purposes. They push policy agenda and supplement to the function. All NGOs aiming to serve street and working children are guided by philosophies that encompass notions of acceptable and feasible lifestyles for the poor children. Whether implicit in daily interaction or stated explicitly in their literature, the objective of NGOs focusing on street children can be summarised as the protection, empowerment and correction of children.

Overwhelming

There is an overwhelming population of street children in Kathmandu. They come to the capital from all corners of Nepal. Organisation estimates that there are tens of thousands of children who are in the streets. The streets are their homes and other street children their family. They survive by working, begging, stealing, and even scavenging in garbage heaps.

Child NGO Federation Nepal is the Federation of twenty NGOs established for child welfare. But, it's sad to see that none of the NGOs/INGOs has the major objective as 'rehabilitating street children'. Some NGOs are involved to assist in areas covering special education, vocational training, and economic and social rehabilitation with the help of INGOs. Maiti Nepal is sheltering near about three hundred children in its Home for Children Securities. CWIN Socialisation center helps children with family reunion and rehabilitation through reference.

There are about one hundred NGOs working for street children, such as Association for the Children of Chhauni, Bal Kendra, Child Welfare Society, CWIN, Happy House, Nava Asha Griha, Nepal Youth Opportunity Foundation, Paropakar Organisation, Bal Sewa Griha etc. The irregularity of these NGOs are creating problem. Street children convey that the credibility of NGOs is declining because what they had convinced them is not completed yet. Reason? NGOs provide physiological need, educational facilities, counseling but not in commensurate way.

In the process of our research we came across an informal organisation called Bal Bhojan run by Dr. Sudha S. Rauniyar. It provides food to the unfortunate street children. Along with food, this organisation provides education, medical facilities, love and support to these children. The NGOs working for the rehabilitation of street children also talk about the success stories of the children returning to their loved ones. Some, who don't want to go back to their home, stay in these institutions and learn and make their own identity.

It was found that street children leave their near and dear ones because of unhealthy family environment and financial problem.

Many NGOs/INGOs are working for the welfare of children including street children. They provide various facilities as physiological needs, counseling, education facilities etc. These factors act as motivating factor in sending children back to their home and live a normal life. The parents should also be taken into considerations in order to make the rehabilitation process successful. Once the children are rehabilitated, they are sent back to their homes, but the unfavourable environment of home and society compel them to return to the street. Thus, to make rehabilitation process effective, awareness level should be increased among the target system. Rehabilitating street children is not only the accountability of NGOs and INGOs but also the responsibility of the government and the community. They should also show interest in this field and move ahead to help NGOs/INGOs to achieve their objectives. They can jointly work with them.

If the NGOs/INGOs can prevent children coming to the street, they can decrease the number of street children and they will not have to work further for the rehabilitation. The lives of street children have chosen and the work they do in order to survive deprive them of a rightful place in the society. They are shunned, sidelined and dehumanised. Their voices and presence do not count. Who is to be blamed, NGOs/INGOs or we…?

(This article is jointly prepared by Bindiya, Mikee, Rajesh, Sushant, all MBA students of Kathmandu University)

Wonders Guess Papers Do

By Narayan Upadhyay

BURN all textbooks, for we have guess papers and guidebooks to face all examinations and tests.
To waste your time in cramming the bookish knowledge inside your tiny brain is worthless. Take the help of guess papers and guide books, and crush the grapes of success under your hungry palate.
If you have the luxury of all kinds of guess papers and guidebooks, the mountain of examination is nothing more than a molehill. Do not fear the jitters that you are supposed to get when you sit for the examinations. Do not have hopelessness. The guess papers give you unequivocal edge.

The feedbacks you get from the valuable guess papers are precious. That all questions and answers you have prepared during examination time with the help of these guess papers do wonder for you.
To your utter amazment, you are likely to find that most of the questions in your question-sheets are strikingly same that you had gone through in the guess papers during your examination preparation. You may call it a sheer coincidence, and think that it is the most lovely and the happiest time of your life. Suddenly, you see your chances.

For you, it is more than a reverie. The end of the repeat appearance in the same examination year after year is here and now. The guessing games whether you will be able to cross the barrier posed by the examination are over now.

The feeling whether you can pass the difficult test suddenly becomes a fear of past, no matter how lousiest of a student you are. Thanks to these guess papers, which, more often than not, respond accurately with the questions asked in the test you appear in, your day of reckoning in the examination has arrived.

Who says there is some hanky-panky in preparing of question papers and guess papers? Who says there is a nexus between question paper setters and the publishers of these guess papers and guidebooks? How can a sheer coincidence be blamed as the publishers-paper setters nexus to rake the fast buck? If anyone has been troubling his minds with all the rubbish queries, he is no worthy of a prize for guessing the right answers to all queries.

If these absurdities still continue to rankle your soul, then you are no more than a jealous rotten man who wants to put undesirable brake on the prosperous business of publishers. Do you feel jealous because the sudden surge in the sale of guess papers give you heartburns? .

For god's Sake, do not blame our publishers, as greedy swines who want to gobble up more money than they can stomach. They are just giving a lifetime opportunity to the dullest students to pass the examination with honour; Because, the guess papers are result-oriented recipe to be used to its maximum in place of textbooks.

You must rather express your deep gratitude to these publishers and paper setters, for they are helping the poor students. See how our students outdo the most difficult of examinations with an unprecedented ease. Had there not been guess papers, how would our students have fared so well in the examinations?

Without them, the faltering, lazy and weak students would not have turned into bright and successful students. If you do not believe, look at their mark sheets; the marks obtained in examinations tell all.
By now, you may have another query in your mind- if our students heavily depend on guess papers what would happen to the overall quality of our education system?

Who cares? For, if anyone had cared, the number of students failing in subjects such as English, Mathematics, and Science would ironically have gone up higher.

There is yet another brighter side of the use of such guess papers. The higher number of failures would have brought an uneasy situation for our education authority. The incredible guess papers have come as the much sought after assistance to the authority. The higher percentage of passes would add a feather in our education authority's cap. So, why to bother about answers, provided in guess papers and guidebooks, which are strikingly the same as asked to be written in the examination.
Therefore, Pray: Let the sale of guess papers go up higher, because they carry along them the students' ultimate hopes: passing the examination without any hitches.