IDUKKI
It is two months since the major landslip at Pettimudy happened and the district administration is gearing up to rehabilitate eight families at Kuttiyarvalley and provide compensation to the kins of the victims.
Devikulam Subcollector S. Prem Krishnan said the government had already identified 50 cents of land for construction of eight houses, each of which would get about five cents each.
The District Collector had written to the government for a special sanction to allot title deeds to the eight families found as legal heirs of the victims of the landslip on August 6. The special sanction was sought, as there would be delay in allotting the title deeds to the land in the normal process.
As per the agreement, the Kanan Devan Hills Plantation (KDHP) Ltd would start construction of the houses at Kuttiyarvalley as soon as the title deeds of land were made available.
In addition to the houses, there would be an approach road with a water supply and power connection. The compensation amount would be given in a week’s time. The KDHP Ltd, State government, and Tamil Nadu government had announced compensation to the legal heirs of the victims. The compensation amount by the KDHP and Kerala governments would be ₹5 lakh each. The Tamil Nadu government also announced a compensation of ₹2 lakh.
In the ill-fated landslip on August 6, four estate lanes at Pettimudy were buried under the debris. A search operation extending to nearly a month found 66 bodies. As per the official estimate, four persons were still missing. A large number of families living in the estate lanes at Pettimudy had either migrated to their native places in Tamil Nadu or shifted to other estate lanes under the KDHP.
However, a trade union leader said the Pettimudy accident should open the eyes of the authorities towards the pathetic living conditions of the workers in the estate lanes. All the lanes were set up during the early plantation era and only minimal maintenance work was annually done by the companies. In the case of closed tea estates, the maintenance works were not done for over a decade.
