Awaiting compensation: Sufferings mount

In this month back in 2014, the Kashmir parts witnessed a huge deluge, which damaged properties worth crores of rupees and claimed nearly 100 lives in the Valley. The government of India after the devastation announced a relief package under the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund in 2015 for the flood affected Kashmiris to renovate the houses and start afresh again. However, many of the people especially from Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, claimed that they have not received the financial assistance from the government yet, thus leaving them to lurch at large. The flood affected people had taken loans from banks for reconstruction or repair of their flood-hit homes and shops on the then state government’s assurance that they would be provided adequate financial aid. In the process of getting the assistance, the people have moved from pillar to post to get the compensation. The devastating floods hit most parts of Srinagar on September 7, 2014, after embankments of the river Jhelum breached at multiple places. A study titled ‘satellite-based rapid assessment on floods in Jammu & Kashmir–September 2014′, conducted jointly by the department of environment & remote sensing and the ISRO, concluded that the 2014 floods inundated 557 sq-km of Kashmir and affected at least 22 lakh people. In order to put an end to the sufferings of flood affected people, who are awaiting the compensation, the government should start a process of identifying such families so that they are rehabilitated and could heave a sigh of relief.