Customs bottleneck keeps relief materials piled up in airport
The death count in the devastated country rose over 6,600 as hundreds of thousands of survivors-homeless and injured- are struggling to survive only on the relief being provided to them.
Nepal exempted tarpaulins and tents from import taxes on Friday, but UN Resident Representative Jamie McGoldrick has said government has to relax customs restrictions further to deal with the increasing flow of relief material.
"They should not be using peacetime customs methodology," he said adding material was piling up at the Kathmandu airport instead of being ferried out to victims.
Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat had appealed to international donors on Friday to send tents, tarpaulins and basic food supplies.
Nepali government officials have said efforts to step up the pace of delivery of relief material to remote areas are being hamstrung by the shortage of trucks and drivers as many of them have returned to their villages following the calamity.
"Our granaries are full and we have ample food stock, but we are not able to transport supplies at a faster pace," Shrimani Raj Khanal, a manager at the Nepal Food Corp as been quoted as saying.
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