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Thursday, November 3, 2011

Re-assessment team verifies complaints of Bara Samdong people as genuine

15 HOUSES RE-CLASSIFIED UNDER SEVERLY DAMAGED CATEGORY
GANGTOK, 02 Nov: Following news reports of lapses published in NOW!, on the part of the West district administration in the assessment of house damages and following complaints made by the public of Bara Samdong GPU in West district the district administration has acknowledged that there has been some discrepancy in assessing house damages and the subsequent disbursement of compensation amount to the public. All 15 houses which had suffered ‘severe damages’ (one of the categories of damages under which a certain amount of compensation is offered) and had earlier been classified as ‘major damage’ by the earlier assessment team, have now been re-categorised under ‘severe damaged’ houses thereby also  increasing the relief amount to be handed out to the affected families.
A team comprising the ADC and officials from the Disaster Management Office surveyed the damaged houses at Bara Samdong again today and it was found that the complaints of the public were genuine and the 15 houses were immediately classified under Severely Damaged houses. ADC, West, AP Rai, who was part of the team while talking to NOW stated that the earlier assessing team had been conservative in their assessments and had categorized the damage under Major /Minor damages. The ADC informed that today all the public and the panchayat were unanimous with the team’s assessment that the 15 houses should be brought under the Severe Damaged category. It was also informed that the accruing compensation will be disbursed shortly and those who have already received cheques with the lower compensation amount would be provided with the cheques with the accruing additional compensation as per the Severe Damaged category.
Yesterday it had been reported by NOW that public Bara Samdong were dissatisfied with the administration over the house damage assessment. Out of a total of 98 houses which had suffered damages 15 had suffered almost total damages; these houses were reported by the people to be un-inhabitable. However the earlier assessing team had classified such houses under ‘major damage’ and some under minor damage.
 Instead of categorizing these totally damaged houses under the appropriate category of house damage (severely damaged or totally damaged) they were classified either under major or minor damages and the victims got between Rs.3000 to Rs.6000 only. It was also alleged that individuals with more severely damaged houses were paid lesser than those with relatively minor damages.

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