About 10 homeless families of Kani village under Mahulia gram panchayat of Rajnagar block, whose houses were turned into ashes in a fire incident on April12 last, are now going to be exposed to the hazards of monsoon as they were asked to vacate the school rooms where they have been taking shelter since the mishap. The school authorities have taken the step after their long stay created problems in the normal functioning of the school.
“Our houses were turned into ashes following a fire on April 12. In the mishap, nearly 115 thatched rooms were destroyed and about 24 families were rendered homeless. Having lost everything, we shifted to the Government-run Kani Primary School for temporary shelter. We are yet to build our houses as we have not been able to arrange the money,” stated the ill-fated families.
They continued, “We have failed to rebuild our damaged houses quickly as the district administration provided us a meager assistance of Rs 17,700 for house damage and purchasing utensils. Now, we have to arrange more money and hence we need time. When the school authorities asked us to leave the school, we are in a dilemma.”
“The school authorities are rubbing salts in our wounds by directing us to leave the school under the pretext that the class room teaching is disrupted due to our stay in the house. But nothing of the sort happens,” informed Golekha Parida, a fire victim.
When contacted, district Collector Niranjan Nayak informed that the district administration has already disbursed compensation as per the State Relief Code guidelines. The fire victims were acquiring the school rooms illegally. So there is nothing wrong when they are asked to vacate the school, he asserted.