DDC chairs meeting of border residents, field officers

RAJOURI, JANUARY 5: District Development Commissioner Rajouri Dr. Shahid Iqbal Choudhary chaired a meeting of border residents and field officers to review relief and compensation measures.

Prominent representatives from Sunderbani, Nowshera, Doongi and Manjakote areas along the LoC attended the meeting.

DDC informed that apart from 100 bunkers under construction Government has given approval for 4918 individual bunkers and 372 community bunkers.

Detailed discussion was held with locals, engineers, army officers and administrative heads regarding modalities for construction of bunkers in a time-bound manner. Each community bunker of 800 SqFt will accommodate 40 persons and individual bunker of 60 SqFt will accommodate 8 persons. This project will create safe accommodation for 54000 people.

Meanwhile proposal submitted by the district administration for coverage of relief and compensation in favour of border residents and migrants as per norms of State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF) has been approved which will be a major relief for border residents who are often forced to migrate due to ceasefire violation.

Dr Shahid informed that now border migrants at relief camps are entitled for Rs 1800/- (Adults) and Rs 1325/- (Child) for one month. Besides, compensation for damages to crops has been approved at the rate of Rs 37,500 per hectare and compensation for loss of livestock has been approved at Rs 30,000 for large animals and Rs 3000 for small animals. The losses and damages of houses and household items have also been covered for compensation.

Speaking on the occasion, the border residents appreciated and lauded the efforts of district administration for a proactive redressal of their issues.

The DDC informed that process has been initiated for coverage of all unconnected household for providing power supply which will cover 6200 houses along the LoC and work is scheduled to commence shortly. He also briefed about major thrust of Government for road connectivity for which a number of internal roads connecting hamlets have been approved.

ACD Noor Aalam, ExEn REW Abdul Ghani Jagal, SDM Abdul Sattar, Tehsildars Salam Din, Mehmood Ayaz, Mohd Rayaz, BDOs Sandeep Sharma, Abid Hussain, Surinder Sharma and other officials attended the conference.