WGH MLA demands Rs 20-25 lakh for Ksan victims

SHILLONG: West Garo hills MLA Azad Zaman has said that every single victim of the Ksan mine tragedy should be paid a compensation of Rs 20-25 lakh.
He said that he is going to take up the matter with the state government as from the very beginning they wanted a compensation of Rs 20-25 lakh for each of the victims who died in the tragedy.
As of now, the families of the victims have received Rs one lakh as interim relief from the state government besides an amount of Rs 2 lakh each from the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund.
Seven months after 16 people were trapped in an illegal coal mine in East Jaintia Hills , the Supreme Court last month allowed the state government’s plea seeking its permission to call off the operation to retrieve the bodies.
He also said that the Supreme Court has said nothing about the compensation and he would raise the matter with the state government.
It was on December 13 last year that 16 miners were trapped inside a coal mine at Ksan after water from nearby Lytein river gushed in. A multi-agency search and rescue operation was put in place, including dewatering of the coal mine where the miners were trapped. In perhaps one of the biggest dewatering exercises ever, more than 100 crore litres of water was pumped out from the main shaft where the miners were trapped and a few adjacent abandoned coal mines.
The dewatering was necessary to pave way for divers to go deep down the main shaft in search of the miners. However, except for the detection and recovery of two bodies and detection of a third with the help of the Indian Navy’s remotely-operated vehicle (ROV), nothing substantial emerged out of the operation.