Uttarakhand decides not to give compensation to 'outsiders'

The Uttarakhand government has decided not to give compensation to the kin of those dead and missing in last month’s devastation from outside the hill state.  

“We will give compensation to only those people who belong to Uttarakhand,” said Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna here on Saturday, after the government decided to declare all the missing persons from the state dead by Monday.

The government has asked all state governments to cooperate. This seems to have been done after the hefty increase in the list of missing persons within the past week, particularly from Uttar Pradesh.

Bahuguna said victims from outside Uttarakhand would get compensation from their respective states. This is in sharp contrast to the earlier assurance that the kin of all those who’d died in the tragedy would be given a compensation of Rs 5 lakh each, up from the earlier Rs 3 lakh. The government now says all those in the state who lost their lives in the calamity would get Rs 2 lakh from the Prime Minister’s relief fund, Rs 1.5 lakh from the central relief fund and the remaining Rs 1.5 lakh from the state government. And, said Bahuguna, people from outside the state would get Rs 3.5 lakh from the Centre, plus the amount fixed by their respective state governments.

As mentioned earlier, the government has decided to declare all missing persons dead by Monday if not traced by then. This was a cabinet decision, taken on Friday.

The figure of missing persons had shot up over a week. The figure of the missing from Uttarakhand rose to 924 from the 660 reported earlier. The list of missing persons from outside the state had risen to 4,824 from the 3,000 reported earlier. “Since the compensation amount is very hefty, there are chances that fictitious people are also applying to avail the money,” said a top government official.

Besides the total of 5,748 missing persons, the official number of deaths in the tragedy is 580 so far.