Pics: Dayanand Kukkaje

Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (MS)

Mangaluru, Feb 29: Though it is nine months, no compensation has been given to the affected families of Pacchanady garbage landslide. In addition, no corrective action is also taken by the MCC in order to prevent the recurrence of the same.

On Saturday, February 29, Byrathi Basavaraj, minister for urban development of the state, gave strict instructions to the concerned officials to take corrective measures, when he visited the area. He also asked the district administration and MCC to compensate the affected families suitably.

The minister asked the officials to build a retainer wall to prevent the garbage from sliding onto private land.

The victims of the landslide spoke to the minister, when he visited the area and said that none of the officials are taking any interest in their case. They also told the minister that the promises made repeatedly by the elected representatives as well as leaders of various political parties have not yielded any results.

According to Ganesh, a resident of Mandara, in the affected area of garbage landslide, recently a survey was done by the administration but that survey is not correct. Ganesh says that according to that survey people who are partially affected by the mishap would get more compensation than those who had to leave their land totally as the garbage has flown over it. So he demanded a fresh survey for compensation.

"Whenever any concerned officials are visiting the area and planning development and action, they are not communicating the same to us locals. As a result we really do not know what is being done in our case. Though the administration has given us temporary shelter at housing board colony at Kulshekhar, we need permanent solution for the problem," said Rajesh Bhat, one more resident of Mandara who has lost all the property in the mishap.

Hearing the plight of the victims, minister Basavaraj took to task the officials and asked them to speed up the relief work. He warned them by saying, "Strict action will be taken on concerned officials if I come to know that this issue is being dragged unnecessarily, creating burden to the affected families. I will visit the area once again next month to check the progress."

Mayor Diwakar Pandeshwar, MLAs Dr Bharath Shetty, Vedavyasa Kamath and MCC commissioner Shanady Ajit Kumar accompanied the minister.