In the wake of a tragic incident of a 30-year-old woman buried alive in subsidence prone zone of Jharia on last Friday, Dhanbad deputy commissioner, Uma Shankar Singh on Monday carried out an on-site inspection of the newly developed quarters in Belgarhia, 6 km from Jharia. The quarters are meant for rehabilitating people and Singh who is also the ex-officio managing director of Jharia Rehabilitation Development Authority (JRDA) gave a host of instruction to JRDA authorities to accelerate the process of rehabilitation.

Singh who was accompanied by senior officials of the JRDA including its advisor Sunil Dalela; Rehabilitation and Resettlement in-charge, Gulzar Anjum and others including Sindri MLA Indrajit Mahto instructed the JRDA authorities to accelerate the rehabilitation work and also ensure regular availability of basic facilities like water supply, etc.

Singh, meanwhile taking cognizance of complaints of people’s representatives including Sindri MLA Indrajit Mahto, took a note about the use of substandard material in the ongoing construction work of the quarters.

Talking to the media after the inspection, Singh said, “We have instructed the complete the shifting of 1034 non-legal titleholder (also known as unauthorized occupants or encroacher) families from the subsidence prone zone to the safer places within one and a half month in the ready to move in quarters of Belgarhia on a priority basis.”

So far around 4,500 families out of a total of 1.04 lakh families living in the 595 underground fire-affected areas have been shifted in 11 years of rehabilitation which began on March 25, 2010.

“Some issues of lack of basic amenities like irregular water supply were also found during the inspection of the colony and we have instructed the authorities to fix the problem at the earliest,” said Singh. He had also instructed to constitute the committees of the newly rehabilitated people for different zones in the colony on the line of apartment committees to look after the management of water, power supply and other facilities.

“The district administration will also conduct a probe with regard to the complaints of use of substandard material in the quarter construction work,” said Singh.

When asked about the lack of employment opportunities for rehabilitated people at Belgarhia working as a deterrent to the people of Belgarhia from the fire-hit areas, Singh said, “Yes indeed the lack of employment opportunities or source of livelihood at a new place is the biggest challenge before both the district administration and JRDA. We will have to find out a solution to the problem and will also seek the guideline of the state government in this regard,”

When asked about the protest of local residents of Baliapur over the proposed shifting of RSP College Jharia from Belgarhia to Ropeway Colony of BCCL at Digwadih in Jharia, Singh said, “The issue will have to be solved through mutual discussion between the people of both Baliapur and Jharia as the demand of local residents of Baliapur to have some higher education institution also seems to be based on some logic as there is a lack of higher educational institution in the area.”