The Indian Railways has decided to pay compensation to all the victims of the train accident that took place in August 2012 at an unmanned level crossing near Sambalpur.In pursuant to an Odisha High Court order passed in November 2012, the Railways has decided to pay damage to the next of kin of the deceased and to the injured in the accident.
In a letter to human rights activist and lawyer Prabir Kumar Das, a Divisional Engineer of the East Coast Railway has informed that an amount of `77, 44, 569 has been sanctioned as compensation. The Railways has also requested Das to cooperate in identifying the victims for distribution of compensation amount.
It may be mentioned that the train mishap took place when an express train hit an auto-rickshaw in which the victims were crossing the railway tracks at an un-manned level crossing at Khairapally near Sambalpur.
All the victims were farm labourers and were socially and economically disabled. While 13 of the 14 deceased were women, their family members independently could not fight with the Railways to seek damage and therefore a PIl was filed in Orissa High Court by Das.
Deciding the case, the HC had directed the Railways to pay compensation at the rate of `5 lakh to each of the families of the 14 deceased. The Railways were also asked to compensate other injured persons by paying damage ranging between `5,000 and `25,000 as per the gravity of the injuries from the date of filing of the PIl with six per cent interest per annum.