State faces financial crunch
SHILLONG: Families of the 16 victims of the Ksan mining tragedy last year may not get any more compensation from the state government.
Soon after the tragedy struck, the Opposition was quick to jump in to demand compensation for the families of the miners following which the state government had provided an interim relief of Rs 1 lakh, besides Rs 2 lakh each from the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund.
However, sources said on Tuesday that the state government is not in a position to pay any more compensation to the families of the victims.
“If the department (Revenue and Disaster Management) had enough funds, more compensation would have been given to them but, the department does not have so much funds,” sources said.
As most of the victims who were killed in the tragedy belong to Rajabala, the local MLA from the area, Azad Zaman (Congress) earlier had demanded Rs 20-25 lakh as compensation for each of the victim who died in the tragedy.
After the incident, the Supreme Court earlier this year allowed the state government’s plea seeking its permission to call off the operation to retrieve the bodies.
It was on December 13 last year that the 16 miners were trapped inside the coal mine after water from nearby Lytein river gushed in.
A multi-agency search 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 the 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 a few bodies with the help of the Indian Navy’s remotely-operated vehicle (ROV), nothing substantial emerged out of the rescue operation.