Govt restarts drill to gauge damage in riot-hit areas
NEW DELHI: Delhi’s deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Friday took charge of the government’s ‘damage assessment’ survey of riot-hit localities in northeast Delhi and ordered a restart of the exercise in the light of data inaccuracies.
The communal violence that tore through north-east Delhi last week has left at least 53 dead, more than 400 injured and hundreds of houses and business enterprises burnt.
The ‘damage assessment’ survey is aimed at gauging the scale of violence in terms of loss to private and public property.
The deputy chief minister has roped in an expert on disaster management and another on child psychology in the ongoing relief exercise, and set up a central control room to monitor relief operation real-time at the district magistrate’s office in Nand Nagri.
On Friday, the deputy chief minister also announced a twoday mega drive for release of compensation to victims of the violence. The drive will be headed by six senior IAS officers, Sisodia said.
He further said that the government has so far received around 1,700 compensation forms and released ex-gratia compensation of more than Rs 88.50 lakh, after verification.
Abhinandita Mathur, advisor to the deputy chief minister and the person currently heading the control room for relief operation, said that the verification drive related to the compensation exercise will start with 1,000-odd violence displaced people who have currently taken shelter at a relief camp in Mustafabad Eidgah.
“The relief operation will be followed by rehabilitation operation,” said Kaushik, a former core group member with the National Disaster Management Authority, who is now part of Sisodia’s team. Kaushik has worked in rescue, relief and rehabilitation drives pertaining to the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in 2004, Kedarnath cloudburst in 2013 and Nepal earthquake in 2015.
The team also comprises Ranjana Prasad, a member of the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights. Prasad is specifically dealing with the traumatised children.
DAMAGE RE-ASSESSMENT
“The damage assessment exercise has to be taken up again because of inaccuracies in the interim reports filed so far. In the survey so far, each damaged building, irrespective of structure, was counted as one unit in most localities. However, the government wanted every floor in every building to be counted as one unit,” said a senior officer, who is part of the exercise.
Another officer said, “Northeast Delhi has the highest population per square kilometer and each floor of most buildings is shared by multiple families and business entrepreneurs. The least that the government could do for an accurate assessment of damages caused by the violence was to count each floor as one unit.” The damage assessment exercise is being carried out by 18 teams led by subdivisional magistrates (SDM), who report to district magistrate (north-east Delhi) Shashi Kaushal.
An interim damage assessment report filed by Kaushal’s office on March 2, said at least 122 houses, 322 shops and 301 vehicles were gutted or completely damaged during the violence last week.
HT had on March 3 reported that the numbers were likely to go up.
The next such interim report was submitted to Sisodia on Thursday. The report, which HT has seen, recorded that 169 houses and 339 shops were gutted or completely damaged. “Now, the numbers are likely to go further up. But it will be a much more nuanced and accurate survey,” said Mathur.
On Thursday, the Delhi government had expanded the ambit of its compensation scheme, bringing it in line with the damage assessment exercise. Now, for compensation too, each floor of a building will be considered as one unit. If a floor is shared by multiple occupants, the financial aid has to be shared by them.