Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Sept 15: After all hopes of the people of erstwhile Doda district for a Central package to victims of massive earthquake of May 1 and aftershocks were dashed, authorities have started distributing relief under State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF) for which the State Government had already released a collective amount of Rs 25 crores for the three districts.
However, the Centre had revised norms for payment of relief for fully damaged pucca houses under SDRF, which would benefit the people to some extent but the amount under all other categories like severely and partially damaged kucha houses, huts etc has remained unchanged.
Official sources told the Excelsior that after the Central Government had rejected Rs 607.7 crores worth package sought by the State Government for May 1 earthquake victims of Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban districts in the first week of July on the pattern of August 2010 cloudbursts in Leh, the State had dispatched a fresh reminder but the Centre refused to give any package for the quake victims.
The State Government has directed the administration of all three districts to start releasing compensation to earthquake victims from the SDRF amount kept at disposal of the Deputy Commissioners. While damages were almost negligible in Ramban district, Bhaderwah town of Doda district had born burnt of the damages. Parts of Kishtwar district had also suffered extensive damages.
Even after four and a half months of the earthquake, the aftershocks are being felt in Doda and Kishtwar districts.
“We have started distribution of relief to the earthquake victims under the SDRF. We have released Rs 25 crores for three districts for compensation to the victims and development of infrastructure. More amount would be released as per requirement of the Deputy Commissioners,” Revenue Secretary Vinod Kaul said.
Deputy Commissioner, Doda Mubarak Singh said: “we have almost exhausted Rs 3 crores on payment of compensation and released slight amount for restoration of damaged infrastructure. We have also projected a fresh demand of Rs 18 crores in both the categories (distribution of relief and restoration of infrastructure)”.
Sources said the Centre has revised the SDRF norms for payment of relief only for fully damaged pucca houses while in all other categories the amount remained uncharged. For fully damaged pucca house, the payment of relief under SDRF has been doubled from Rs 35,000 to Rs 70,000.
“The revised norms of SDRF by the Centre would benefit the people to some extent especially those whose pucca houses have been fully damaged,” they added.
Under the SDRF, there was provision of only Rs 15,000 for fully damaged kucha houses, Rs 6300 for severely damaged pucca house and Rs 3200 for severely damaged kucha house, Rs 1900 for partially damaged pucca and kucha houses, Rs 1250 for damaged cattle shed and Rs 2500 for damaged kullah.
The payment of compensation under the SDRF norms are devised by the Government of India as the SDRF amount is released by it to the State Government for victims of natural calamities every year. The norms for doubling the amount for complete loss of pucca houses have been revised recently.
In all other categories the compensation was too meager to help the earthquake victims, sources admitted.
As per the official data, 47,513 houses have been damaged in Doda district in the quake and aftershocks which included 678 fully, 10255 severely and 29,317 partially. Bhaderwah town of Doda district bore the brunt of the damage. In Kishtwar district, about 100 houses have been fully damaged while 2815 were severely damaged and about 19,000 were partially damaged.
The damage was comparatively less in Ramban district.
In Doda district, damage to Government infrastructure was around Rs 89 crores while in Kishtwar it was Rs 8 crores and in Ramban Rs 1.5 crores. In Doda district, about 500 schools, 14 Primary Health Centres and 279 Community Health Centres have been damaged while in Kishtwar district, 169 schools were damaged.
Sources said the figures of damage to private property i.e. the houses, shops, cow shed and other personal and commercial establishments in Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban districts has been worked out by the administration under the SDRF. The estimates had also been made under Leh pattern as there was a hope that the Centre might release the special package to erstwhile Doda district but that didn’t happen.
The Centre had released Rs 125 crores worth special relief/rehabilitation package for Ladakh cloudburst victims of 2010. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had announced the package after his visit to Leh after the tragedy.
The package had a provision of Rs 2 lakh each to the victims whose houses were fully damaged and Rs 1 lakh to those, whose houses were partially damaged. Rs 1 lakh ex-gratia was released for next of kin of deceased and Rs 50,000 for seriously injured. More than 200 people were killed in the cloudbursts.
Sources said though there were only two casualties in earthquake at Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban districts, the damage was much more as two districts-Doda and Kishtwar were completely hit by quake and there was massive damage to houses and other property of the people.
After detailed assessment of the situation, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had met Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh personally and apprised him of the damage caused by earthquake and sought Rs 607.7 crores worth package for the earthquake victims. The State Cabinet had endorsed the package.
Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had reiterated demand for the package during the visit of Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi to Kishtwar on June 25.
Worthwhile to mention here that five out of six MLAs in Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban districts belonged to the Congress and two of them-Abdul Mujeed Wani (R&B) and Vikar Rasool (MoS Power etc) were Ministers but they failed to persuade the Central Government for grant of special package to the earthquake victims.
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