Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Oct 7: Government today said nearly one lakh houses and hundreds of public buildings were damaged in a series of devastating earthquakes which shook Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban districts of Chenab Valley this year.
The details furnished by Revenue Department reveal that the loss of residential private property (houses and huts) in three districts of Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban was 70,073, 26,520 and 75 respectively, adding that more than 48,755 families were affected in Doda district, 32,000 families in Kishtwar district followed by Ramban where 75 families have been affected.
Nearly 700 educational institutions have also suffered damage in these districts and more than Rs 8919.239 lakh of loss to the public infrastructure in Doda district has been assessed which includes drinking water supply works, irrigation and flood control, power, primary health center, community assets in social sector, roads, forests, fisheries, PMGSY roads, JKPCC projects, district police office, treasury office, animal husbandry, sheep husbandry, Horticulture department and Law department.
The Government said most of the damage caused in district Doda was at Bhaderwah (B) Block, where 3607 concrete (Pacca) and 5549 mud (Kacha) houses were damaged. The block also figures in the top of the list where more than 216 religious buildings have been damaged.
Apart from houses and other buildings, the area has to bear the loss of livestock amounting crores of rupees.
This was stated by the Minister of State for Power, Vikar Rasool, in reply to a calling attention notice by Naresh Kumar Gupta in Legislative Council today regarding situation that has arisen due to unabated earthquakes in Doda, Kishtwar, Badherwah, Thathri, Gandoh, Banihal areas.
After making assessment of losses in all the affected districts, the Government has released only Rs 24.84 crore for temporary restoration of families under state Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF) including ex-gratia relief to dead and injured persons while the valley requires a relief of Rs 11925.59 lakhs as per the Government assessment.
Minister for Housing and Horticulture Raman Bhalla while replying to another question by Khalid Najeeb Suhrawardy informed the House that an amount of Rs 19 crore has been provided to Deputy Commissioner Doda.
“Out of the released amount, Rs 1.50 crore is for temporary restoration of infrastructure and rest for providing ex-gratia relief to the earthquake affected families in the district,” he said.
The Minister said that an amount of Rs 5.69 crore has been provided to Deputy Commissioner, Kishtwar, for payment of ex-gratia for damage to private property.
Bhalla also said that an amount of Rs 15 lakh has been released to Deputy Commissioner, Ramban, for the purpose, of which an amount of Rs 5.09 lakh has been expended so far.
The amount released in four tehsils of district Doda was for Doda Tehsil (Rs 25, 00,000), Bhaderwah (Rs 85, 00,000), Gandoh (Rs 12, 00,000) and Thathri (Rs 7, 00,000).
The Tehsil wise funds in Kishtwar was Rs 150000 for ADC Kishtwar, Rs 207000 for Tehsildar Kishtwar, Rs 361000 for tehsil Paddar, Rs 315000 relief for Chatroo and Rs 257350 for Marwah Tehsil in the district.
Similarly, Rs 178900 as relief was distributed among 75 affected families of Ramban district.The Government has also distributed as many as 5579 tents to the affected families for temporary shelters, besides free ration for three months.
The Government also said till date no central or state special relief package was sanctioned to the affected families and Central Government also didn’t relax the SDRF norms which could enable the state to extend special relief to the sufferers.
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