India, one of the key donors to quake-ravaged Nepal, has said that it will extend support to the Himalayan nation according to its needs and priorities for reconstruction and rehabilitation.
India's Ambassador to Nepal, Ranjit Rae during a media interaction yesterday said that Nepal has assured India that it would assess its needs by June 10, adding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already made a commitment towards this end.
"Nepal and India are culturally and socially bound together and we have the same customs and rituals. We, therefore, will lend support to Nepal with a good spirit," the Ambassador said.
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Underlining that India extended its support within six hours of the devastating tremor on April 25, Rae said the country has already supplied over 15,000 tonnes of relief materials to Nepal.
He, however, said India has not calculated the support in terms of monetary value.
He stressed that the Nepali government should carry out relief distribution and reconstruction plans through the government mechanism.
"The government has a strong and large network in districts and it knows what the requirements are. So it is better to go through the government channel and mechanism," he said.
The devastating earthquake on April 25 and the aftershocks killed more than 8,400 people and flattened thousands of buildings, including some iconic heritage jewels that has hit the country's tourism sector hard.
On Tuesday, a fresh quake of 7.3-magnitude temblor struck the Himalayan nation just when it had begun to rebuild itself following the devastation from the monster temblor less than three weeks ago.
The death toll from Tuesday's temblor rose to 136 while the number of injured reached 2,956.
