Officials of Dhanbad district administration and Jharia Rehabilitation and Development Authority (JRDA) are busy preparing a status report on shifting residents living in the underground fire-affected areas of the region in view of a high level visit by Union coal secretary Susheel Kumar on Thursday.
Kumar, who will be accompanied by chief secretary Rajbala Verma for what is scheduled to be a two-day visit, will discussing a gamut of issues including shifting people from 42 of 595 fire-hit areas within a time-frame, relocating RSP College-Jharia and Raj Plus Two School to safer places and laying of alternative railway tracks because of the closure of the Dhanbad-Chandrapura line.
Verma who visited the district on May 30, five days after a father-son duo slipped into a crater and died in the Surratand area, had asked officials of the district administration, JRDA and Bharat Coking Coal (BCCL) to work on all the issues, and also accelerate civil construction work.
Thursday's meeting is also likely to take up the crucial question of a cut-off date to determine who would be rehabilitated. The Centre, in tune with the Union coal ministry, is insisting on 2004 as the cut-off date, which means that only families who were living in the 595 fire affected areas of Jharia Coalfield Region from then were eligible for rehabilitation benefits.
However, the district administration and JRDA has already carried out a survey of the people living in the 595 sites considering 2009 as the cut-off date. Hence, 2004 as cut-off would reduce the number of families to be rehabilitated drastically, from the target of 54,159 families.
JRDA chief manager (civil) Sunil Dalela said they were ready with an action taken report as per the chief secretary's instructions during her visit to Dhanbad on May 30.
In all, JRDA has so far constructed 3,360 houses in the Belgarhia area of Baliapur block and 2,155 families have been rehabilitated in these apartments. As many as 992 apartments are now ready to be allotted, while 2,000 more flats are expected to be ready by October 2017.
ADM (law and order) Rakesh Dubey, who is also the rehabilitation and resettlement in charge of JRDA, said, "We have taken measures for accelerating the rehabilitation process from the 42 most dangerous fire affected areas but more needs to be done."
On shifting RSP College-Jharia, Dubey said they had identified some sites like Bhaga Mining College, an unused primary health centre at Baniahir and the BCCL Central Hospital at Jealgora as alternatives, but a final decision would be taken in a day or two.
