Thursday, August 14, 2014

DC East reassures Pakyong Airport affected

FOLLOWING QUERIES BY AAI, BUILDINGS & HOUSING DEPTT REEVALUATING DAMAGE ASSESMENT

AMEET OBEROI
GANGTOK, 13 Aug: District Collector [East], Tshewang Gyaccho said today that the district administration is trying to solve the problem related to the rehabilitation of families affected by the construction of Pakyong Airport as soon as possible.
While speaking to NOW!, the DC said, “We learnt about the press meet held by the Pakyong Airport Affected Families Committee recently and the District Administration is also very much concerned for the safety of the people. We are aware of the public resentment and since the monsoon is at its peak which can cause further damages to the houses, the district administration is trying to solve the problem as soon as possible”.
Pakyong Airport Affected Families Committee had held a press conference on 11 August where it had requested the state administration to undertake the rehabilitation process earnestly and provide compensation to the 165 families affected by the construction of the Pakyong Greenfield Airport.
Seventeen households had approached the district administration for acquiring houses, the assessment for which has already been done by the Buildings & Housing Department and the assessment value in total had been forwarded to the Airport Authority of India [AAI]. But the AAI had sent back the file putting up certain queries basically pertaining to the rates of compensation to be paid for the damaged houses.
Therefore, the district administration requested the Building & Housing Department to immediately look into the matter regarding the rates quoted, said the DC further adding that before the monsoons, 143 households had approached the district administration regarding the same issue and the line departments had gone to the field and analyzed the assessments of the houses. A few of the houses were not under the ambit of consideration, but 137 households were assessed and their compensation values completed, he informed.
“Now since the AAI has come up with the observation regarding the 17 houses [regarding the rate of compensation to be given], we have asked the Building & Housing Department to look into the matter of even the other 143 houses so that there is no problem to any of the total households regarding the rate of compensation to be given and so that the file is not returned by AAI as done by it for the 17 houses recently,” he stated.
The DC [East] further stated that the AAI had informed the district administration of experts being called in from an engineering college in Roorkee by the AAI to carry out an independent assessment from their side of the damages sustained by the houses due to the Airport project in Pakyong.
Simply writing about the issue will not solve the problem, so to reach an amicable solution the Tourism & Civil Aviation Department has taken the initiative of holding a series of meetings with AAI in the next five days and has requested the district administration to be a part of the meetings, the DC [East] said and added that the district administration is pursuing the matter with utmost urgency and an outcome should be reached in the coming days so that a tangible solution to the whole issue is reached, the DC further stated.

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