7/11 bomb blast victims face apathy

Apathy, corruption and red-tapism of the Railways and state government is forcing 7/11 bomb blasts victims and relatives to run from pillar to post.

As a result, only around 50 per cent of the victims or their relatives have got compensation declared by the authorities, alleged senior BJP leader Kirit Somaya.

Addressing a press conference Somaya said, "Railways announced an ex-gratia payment of Rs 5 lakh to kin of dead and Rs 50,000 to the seriously-injured persons. Of the 1,077 victims (dead and injured), 1,054 got the ex-gratia payment. On this front the railway authorities did a good job."

But the real story starts at this point, besides ex-gratia from Railways, these victims are also entitled to compensation from the Railway Claims Tribunal (RCT). Till date, Railways claim that the department has forwarded cases of only 479 to the RCT.

The reason for the delay in sending claims to RCT is red-tapism and corruption, and victims are asked to shell out 15-25 per cent of the claim amount by railway officials, he alleged.

A special RCT for bomb blast victim was constituted in November last year but only four hearings of this tribunal could take place so far. In these four hearings, the tribunal settled the claims of only 174 victims and of this 164 were related to deaths. That means only 10 injured have got their rightful compensation.

The story of the state government is more horrific. The state government announced A compensation of Rs 1 lakh to families of deceased and Rs 50,000 to the injured. Besides, the state also promised to pay the expense for the medical treatment, including surgeries and giving equipment like hearing aid or artificial limbs.

However, 400 victims have not received any compensation or reimbursement of their medical expenses, and those who have got it also partially, Somaya claimed.

We surveyed 100 families affected by the blast and found that in the case of 11 victims from Thane district which include family of one deceased, they didn't receive any compensation. This is despite the district collector accepting their claims. But lack of funds in district treasury for compensation claims could not be released, he pointed out.

On the one hand the state government is not giving victims money because it doesn¿t have funds and on the other hand they returned the donation of Rs 25 lakh from president A P J Abdul Kalam which meant for hearing aids to victims.

On this backdrop, we demand all claims of victims be settled before the first anniversary of the bomb blasts, instead of having just one hearing per month, RCT should conduct consecutive hearings for next month and settle the claims and official of additional general manager at Railways, should coordinate all these efforts, Somaya said.

We had positive response from the railway board on this issue and railway board chairman promised to appoint a pointsperson to deal with these cases but there was no response from state government, no state department is ready to take responsibility to ensure that the victims get compensation, he alleged.