Dharchula MLA, Harish Dhami raised furore in the House when he claimed that 11 scheduled caste families affected by disaster are taking shelter in a Government primary school in Dharchula for last many months.
The member claimed that these families had lost their houses in the disaster which hit the area during the rainy season and due to paltry compensation offered by the government they are not able to reconstruct their houses.
Dhami said that these families are forced to take shelter in the primary school of Sinaya Khola of Dharchula from many days and the Government is doing nothing to solve their plight.
He claimed that recently one of the woman living here had died but her family members were not allowed to hold eschatological (related to death) rites inside the school by other villagers. Dhami said that only a sum of Rs 1,19,000 is paid as compensation for complete damage to the house due to disaster which is inadequate. He demanded that the Government should amend its disaster policy and increase the compensation amount to at leastRs seven lakh.
In response, the parliamentary affairs minister Madan Kaushik said that the State Government has written a letter to the union Government on amendments in the disaster policy. He assured that the issue of 11 families taking shelter in the village primary school would be taken up with the district administration.