We all are well aware that the giant earthquake on October 8 last year claimed 964 lives and left 97,637 houses totally or partially damaged in Jammu and Kashmir. Of the 97,637 houses, 26,177 had been totally damaged and 71,460 partially damaged.



Government this time came into action on time and the criteria for compensation was decided as Rs 50,000 each to the next of kin of the deceased, Rs 5,000 each to the injured, Rs 1,00,000 for totally damaged houses and Rs 10,000 to 30,000 for partially damaged houses. Also, Rs 5,000 will be given to each family who constructed shelters before December 2005. Inspite of all this even a proposal for Rs 1342.44 crore has been submitted to the Union Home Ministry for rehabilitation and reconstruction of basic infrastructure in quake-hit areas In addition to all this Rs 5 lakh has been offered by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for each of the child orphaned by the quake, but this amount would be put in fixed deposit so that the child had ample amount by the time he will come out of the school or college.



Six months after the devastation, more than dozens of families are still in quest - not for food, water or shelter but for dead bodies of their family members, who are missing since Quake. The nastiest incident happened to them is now their own government is refusing to accept that they are dead. Means what, government wants dead to come and prove that they are dead? There are smattering families in quake hit Kashmir area who haven’t till yet got any news of neither the members nor their dead bodies. Most of them were labourers, and unfortunately, were the only bread earners of their families. For all these kind of cases local government has issued a tag - ‘Missing’.



Families associated with all these missing individuals are facing a real tough time.

Hilal Ahmed had always dreamt of giving best education to his kid brother Munir Ahmed, a class 12th student. Hilal an artisan by profession is missing while working from bank of Jehlum - family has no clue whether he’s dead or alive. Family is still hoping that their bread earner is alive. Hilal’s body has not been recovered even five months after the quake and that’s the reason administration has been denied compensation to family. Munir now has had to pick up work to pay for his studies. Salim lost his elder son but he has yet to get a death certificate from the authorities’.



We all know that as a rule, a person has to be missing for seven years before the government acknowledges that he is dead and grants him the compensation, but I think that this rule should be valid only in normal conditions and not in conditions like natural disasters. From where can you find the bodies of those who all are washed away in river or digged inside mother earth during the earthquake? The government has promised to take favourable steps and cut short the period but my question to government is until some thing is decided, what about the families like Munir and Salim. Where this quake is hit generation supposed to go and what about the huge compensation amounts issued by the government?



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