33 vulnerable villages on top priority for rehab

Neena Sharma

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, May 17

The Uttarakhand Government is likely to accord the top priority to around 33 villages falling in the extremely vulnerable zones when the rehabilitation work starts this year. Earlier, the rehabilitation process had stalled due to lack of funds and proper technical assessment of the villages.

As many as 73 villages have been identified based on a report prepared by the District Magistrates of the most vulnerable villages. The distribution of villages includes Pithoragarh (21), Uttarkashi (11), Rudraprayag (7), Chamoli (17), Tehri Garhwal (8), Bageshwar (3), Nainital (3) and Almora (3).

“We have completed the geological and civil survey of 33 extremely vulnerable villages. The work on 40 villages is yet to be done. In all, 17 reports assessing the vulnerability of the villages based on geological report and social impact assessment have been prepared which would be submitted to the Directorate of the Disaster Mitigation and Management tomorrow,” said Gangadhar Prasad, Director, Geology division of the State Mining Directorate.

The geology wing was roped in to carry out a technical assessment in March. Significantly, the Uttarkhand government feared a backlash from political representatives, who have been favouring en-mass rehabilitation of villages. It took the services of the geology wing under the State Mining Department to take up the technical survey of the most vulnerable villages.

Just days after the 2013 mid-June floods, the issue was politicised to a certain extent that a top BJP leader had called for rehabilitating the villagers from Pithoragarh in the forest areas.

According to the initial list of villages falling in vulnerable zone, the government has surveyed 341 villages out of which 225 villages were said to be extremely vulnerable to disasters. Later, the District Magistrates selected around 73 villages lying in the extremely vulnerable zone. The technical team assigned these top priority for the survey.

“The absence of surplus revenue land and social consequences of large scale rehabilitation were some of the reasons that forced us to first address the issue of most vulnerable villages,” said Yashpal Arya, Revenue Minister.

While the government has earmarked around Rs 10 crore in this year’s budget for carrying out the rehabilitation work, it will seek further assistance from the Centre.

The initial financial assessment suggest that the government is likely to require around Rs 30 lakh-35 lakh for a small populated village while the expenses could go as high as high Rs 1 crore- Rs 5 crore for large villages.