By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 17 Jan: Land has been selected at four places to house the Joshimath disaster affected families. Out of these, three pre-fabricated demonstration buildings will be built in the first phase on the land of the Horticulture Department located at Koti Farm. The buildings will be constructed as model units. If the people like it, more buildings will be built for the disaster affected families in three other places.
CBRI, Roorkee, has been asked to construct the model building in the next five days, i.e. by 21 January.
Ranjit Sinha, Secretary, Disaster Management, stated today at the Secretariat, here, that land has been selected at five places for resettling the disaster affected families. Out of these, four places have been found suitable on the basis of a GSI report. Sinha said that, in order to give confidence to the people in Joshimath that good houses would be built and given to the affected families, initially, three model buildings would first be built on the land of the Horticulture Department located at Koti Farm. Here, pre-fabricated model buildings of One, Two and Three BHK would be built. It would be decided later on who would be given a house of how many rooms based on measurements of existing houses owned by the affected families. The measurement exercise is being done and s in the final stages.
Sinha added that CBRI, Roorkee, has been entrusted with the construction of these pre-fabricated buildings. People would be taken into confidence by the local administration on the allotment of houses and, based on their approval, more such buildings would be constructed. Executing agencies have already been chosen by the CBRI, and their pre-approved rates have already been approved. The rates have been fixed at Rs 400 per square foot by the CBRI. The life of these buildings is estimated to be a minimum of 25 to 30 years.
The Koti Farm of the State Horticulture Department is at a distance of around 12 kilometres from Joshimath on the Auli Road. The second location is Dhak village on Malari Road, also at a distance of 12 kilometres from Joshimath. This land belongs to the Revenue Department. The third location is Pipalkoti, a distance of 36 kilometres from Joshimath. Government land is available here. The fourth location is the land belonging to the Herbal Research & Development Institute (HRDI) located at a distance of 9 kilometres from Joshimath.
All the locations have been chosen after the GSI study and survey. Apart from this, possibilities of land availability are also being explored at other places for rehabilitation of the disaster affected families.
