“The families of people who die in such tragedies will now get Rs 4 lakh,” said state relief commissioner Sanjay Kumar.
The family of a 47-year-old farmer who died of snakebite in Pilibhit on July 31 has been waiting for months for the Rs 4 lakh compensation the Uttar Pradesh government had promised. Reason: local police had no idea where the viscera of the man should be sent and it was returned by a couple of laboratories they had sent it to, citing lack of required expertise.
With the Yogi Adityanath government expanding the eligibility for compensation through the State Disaster Relief Fund, victims of man-animal conflict, snake bites, boat mishaps and choking due to sewage cleaning or gas leakage will now be eligible for financial assistance in Uttar Pradesh.
“The families of people who die in such tragedies will now get Rs 4 lakh,” said state relief commissioner Sanjay Kumar.
Mrityunjay Kumar, principal secretary to the chief minister, said Adityanath was disturbed by the large number of people falling victim to snake bites and house collapses in the monsoon. “The decision is meant to help the needy. A policy will now be in place for assistance under various heads,” he added.
The government has already issued a notification in this regard.
Till now, only those injured, dead or financially hit due to rain, lightning strikes, storms, floods, earthquakes, heat wave and other natural phenomena were covered under the State Disaster Relief Fund. “The norms for providing aid to victims in these newly included tragedies will be the same as those for other notified natural disasters. The scale of relief assistance will not exceed the norms of the State Disaster Relief Fund,” said Kumar.
Chief conservator of forests Ramesh Pandey said Uttar Pradesh has finally become a state where equal importance is given to human and animal lives. “Man-animal conflicts will now be treated as state disasters, and the entire government machinery will be deployed to tackle it,” he added.
Dr Sam Meesum, a senior medical officer who trains health workers to handle snake bite cases at 20 community health centres across the state, said five to ten snake-bite cases are reported from each such unit every month during the monsoon.
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