By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun/New Delhi, 1 Aug: Rajya Sabha MP and State BJP Chief Mahendra Bhatt yesterday raised the issue of better disaster relief norms in case of disasters in the hill states including Uttarakhand, during a debate in the Upper House. Raising the issue, he stressed that there is an urgent need to raise the compensation and ex-gratia amount paid to disaster victims in Uttarakhand and other hill states.
Bhatt also demanded that the hill states should be given the right to amend the norms and the standards of relief and compensation in view of the difficult geographical conditions. Bhatt also raised the issue of the problem of internet connectivity in remote areas of the state.
In his address in the Rajya Sabha yesterday, Bhatt drew the attention of the government to the difficult geographical conditions in the hill states. He observed that the amount of compensation or ex-gratia relief for the disaster affected areas under the National Disaster Management Authority should be increased.
Bhatt claimed that it is necessary to provide necessary compensation for the loss caused by flood, landslide and earthquake under the National Disaster Management Authority and to increase the compensation against the building damage and agricultural land damage due to landslide and flood. He also said that Disaster Management Authority is constituted in the state and districts, but the states have the right to grant relief or ex-gratia only under the guidelines of the standards of the Central National Management Authority.
Referring to Uttarakhand, the MP said that it is a big challenge to relocate people due to repeated occurrence of natural calamities. The ex-gratia fixed for the victims in case of disasters is so low that the affected people do not get a fair financial amount. In the mountains, houses made of mud and stone are not considered in the category of concrete houses and these families are deprived of fair compensation. Some houses do not collapse completely in the landslide area but continuing to live in those houses becomes very dangerous. But the standard of disaster is that unless the house is completely destroyed, they are not included in the compensation category, due to which these families remain deprived. There are small farms in the mountains, and these get completely damaged due to floods and landslides, but according to the disaster standard, the compensation given to is so little that it is not possible for the farmers to make their farms cultivable again, and even good farms become barren. Calling it a matter of public importance, he drew the attention of the government and said that under the National Disaster Management Authority, the amount of compensation for the disaster affected area should be increased and the state governments should be given the right to amend the standards keeping in mind the geographical conditions.
Bhatt also raised the problem of mobile and internet connectivity in Uttarakhand in the House. Drawing the attention of the government, he said that there is a need to improve the mobile and internet facilities provided by the BSNL in the state. He added that, being a hill state, it was decided to connect 6,000 additional villages of the state with communication facilities with the aim of connecting the remote villages with today’s news revolution, but according to his information, only around 2,000 villages have been connected with this facility so far.
