The Kerala High Court on Wednesday asked the State government to give due publicity to the procedure put in place to enable those affected by the floods to track the progress of action on their damage claims.
The Bench headed by Chief Justice Hrishikesh Roy observed that it would be necessary to give due publicity to the procedure for tracking the progress of the claims process.
When various flood related cases came up for hearing before the Bench, Additional Advocate General Ranjith Thampan submitted that necessary details of the steps taken on the appeals and applications received under the Rebuild Kerala Initiative would be uploaded on the website of the government so that the applicants could keep track of the progress of the action on their appeals and applications.
He also submitted that the last date for filing the appeal was extended till January 31 on a directive from the High Court. The applications received after January 31 could not be considered. In many of the districts such as Alappuzha, appeals received belatedly were sent by the panchayats while in some other district such as Ernakulam, the appeals received belatedly were not opened but kept safely.
‘Media reports baseless’
In the meantime, the government further extended the date for filing appeals till June 30, 2019. He also said that the Ernakulam District Collector had already issued a statement terming as baseless a newspaper report that sacks full of applications were found dumped near one of the toilets at the collectorate.
Meanwhile, Comptroller and Auditor General in an affidavit said that it had decided to conduct a performance audit on flood control measures taken in the state in view of the huge outlay in flood control and mitigation measures.