The BJP government in Uttarakhand on Wednesday said no residential building in Joshimath would be demolished without the consent of the owners, against the backdrop of massive protests against allegedly unilateral plans to pull down houses that have developed cracks.

A total of 723 houses have, however, been marked as unlivable and the occupants are being relocated, the government said.

“There is no plan to demolish the damaged houses. We will dismantle only two hotels that have tilted towards each other as the land between them has developed fissures. Any further sinking of the land there could damage other properties,” said R. Meenakshi Sundaram, secretary to chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami.

The dismantling of the hotels — Mountain View and Malari Inn — began from the top later in the day.

“Some residents whose houses were damaged in the natural calamity have themselves requested the administration to pull down their houses. We are taking applications from them before moving ahead to raze their buildings,” Sundaram said.

The officer said water discharge from a burst aquifer — a water-bearing subterranean rock — was decreasing.

“There have been no new cracks in the city after January 7. The seepage of water at one place has reduced from 570 litres per minute a few days ago to 360 litres per minute two days ago to 250 litres per minute on Wednesday. This is a sign that the situation is returning to normal,” Sundaram said.

The official also announced compensation for those affected. “The government will immediately pay Rs 1.5 lakh to those whose houses have been damaged in the calamity. More will be paid after the properties are assessed. The initiate payment of Rs 1.5 lakh includes Rs 50,000 for shifting to other places,” Sundaram said.

Himanshu Khurana, the district magistrate of Chamoli under which Joshimath falls, said: “We held a meeting with the affected people and many of them asked the administration to pull down their houses. Other than the two hotels, we won’t touch any other building without getting written consent from the owners.”

Some residents alleged that government officials were mounting pressure on them to give in writing that they wanted their houses to be razed. The district magistrate denied the charge.

“The government will not do anything without the consent of the affected people. We have identified 723 buildings where living is dangerous,” Khurana said.

A large number of locals had sat on a dharna on the Jyotirmath-Badrinath Highway on Tuesday evening when police had reached Joshimath with paramilitary forces and equipment to dislodge the damaged houses.

The residents had alleged that the government did not hold any discussions with them before deciding to demolish their houses.

The protest continued on Wednesday.

Mayank Joshi, a local, said: “We were forced to vacate our houses because a wall had cracked on January 4. However, the government has not given us an alternative place to stay. Now, an officer has asked us to give in writing that our house should be razed.”

Kanti Devi, 65, who was shifted to a school five days ago after the walls of her house developed cracks, told reporters: “We are a joint family of 35 members. We have been put up in a room of a school on the outskirts of Joshimath without any facilities. We don’t know what happened to our cattle. We are sleeping on the floor as the officers didn’t allow us to take our belongings with us. They gave us 1kg rice, 1kg wheat flour, 1kg sugar, 1kg rahar daal, 1 litre cooking oil and 1kg sugar when we were brought here.”

“Are we baggers? We have our own house in Joshimath — the most beautiful place on earth. Give us adequate compensation, rehabilitate us and then leave us alone. We built houses in Joshimath because the government never alerted us to any danger. Then the government allowed heavy construction work here and put our lives in danger. It seems the government wants us to shift from Joshimath so that it can hand over the entire area to big industrialists,” she added.

Sundarlal Semwal and Thakur Singh Rana, the owners of hotels Mountain View and Malari Inn, respectively, told reporters on Wednesday that they had not received any letter from the government declaring that the structures would be pulled down and that no government official had visited their properties to assess their cost.

“I am unable to understand how much they will pay me without a physical assessment of the property. There is something grossly suspicious about the actions of the government. We didn’t build the hotels illegally. We are being punished just because we are the victims of a man-made calamity which is being projected by the government as a natural calamity,” Rana said.

He echoed several other residents, saying the construction of a hydro-power project and a tunnel below the earth had caused incessant landslides that led to the cracks.

Chief minister Dhami, who spent the day in Joshimath after a telephone conversation with BJP president J.P. Nadda, said: “It is our priority to shift affected families to safe locations. We are sensitive towards their problems and ready to compensate for their loss. Rehabilitation is a long process and we are working on it.”