Kathmandu, Oct 10: President Ramchandra Paudel has issued a disaster-related ordinance on the government’s recommendation, clearing the legal way to register the deaths of people missing in the Bhotekoshi flood.
According to Krishna Bahadur Shahi, spokesperson for the President’s Office, the ordinance amending several Nepal laws related to disaster management, 2083 BS, has been issued and will now enter the implementation process.
The government had also recommended ordinances amending laws related to land and forests. The president has kept those two ordinances under consideration.
The disaster ordinance was recommended mainly to remove legal obstacles facing families of people missing in the Bhotekoshi disaster. It reduces the waiting period for declaring a missing person dead from 12 years to 45 days in such cases.
Families of those missing in the flood had completed funeral rites but were unable to obtain death certificates from ward offices. Local authorities said existing laws did not allow them to register the deaths. As a result, affected families were unable to receive immediate relief and access other legal benefits.
Under the Civil Code, a missing person generally cannot be declared dead until 12 years have passed, while the waiting period is three years under certain special circumstances. The provisions left local authorities in flood-affected districts unable to process applications.
Without death registration, families cannot claim pensions, transfer ownership of movable and immovable property, receive social security benefits, collect insurance payments or obtain official recognition of widowhood. Families had been making repeated visits to ward offices, district registration offices and district administration offices seeking relief.
The legal problem also affected the families of missing army and police personnel, particularly in claiming pensions, insurance and transferring property. Insurance claims can also become difficult if they are not filed within a year.
Under the government’s relief policy for the Bhotekoshi flood, a family is entitled to Rs 200,000 for one death and an additional Rs 100,000 for each additional death in the same family.
With the ordinance now issued, the federal government can instruct district registration offices to process death registrations for those missing in the disaster, allowing their families to claim government relief and other legal benefits.
People’s News Monitoring Service
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