One year of Ksan tragedy
SHILLONG: A year has passed by since the tragic Ksan mining tragedy in which 16 people were killed and the families of the victims are still hoping that they would get a final compensation from the government.
As of now, the state government has already paid Rs 1 lakh adding that an amount of Rs 2 lakh was also sanctioned through the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund.
Rajabala MLA, Dr Azad Zaman while speaking about the incident exactly a year after said that the government is mum on the final compensation for the families of the victims.
“It is surprising that a year has gone by but the government has not paid the final compensation to the families of the victims,” he said while adding that the families are counting on the state government that some additional compensation would be paid to them.
Earlier, the NGT committee had recommendations to sanction some additional amount to the families of Ksan mine tragedy besides the amount which was already paid.
However, sources said that the state government is not in a position to pay any more compensation to the families of the victims.
“If the department had enough funds, more compensation would have been given to them but, the department does not have funds,” sources said.
As most of the victims who were killed in the tragedy belong to Rajabala, the local MLA from the area, Dr Azan Zaman, earlier had demanded Rs 20-25 lakh as compensation for each of the victim who died in the tragedy.
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 operations 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 two bodies with the help of the Indian Navy’s remotely-operated vehicle (ROV), nothing substantial emerged out of the rescue operation.
