Himachal Rain Havoc: Homes Lost, Plea for Government Aid

Shimla: Ravinder Singh is almost inaudible as he talks about his three-room house that has sunk down a couple of feet, and could collapse anytime now. The middle-aged man takes long pauses before completing a small sentence, apparently to keep his emotions in check. “Will the government help us?” he asks in a small voice.

When told he might get a little over Rs one lakh for his loss, he looked gutted. “I have spent around Rs 20 lakh on building this house. My wife and I carried 12,500 bricks on our back from the road to save whatever we could. We spent every penny we had on it,” he said. “What will we do with just Rs one lakh?” he said, shooting a quick glance at his wife, who had not uttered a word in the entire conversation. She seems too traumatized by the loss to talk about it.

For his livelihood, Ravinder is dependent on a small apple orchard surrounding his house. Along with the house, he has lost several apple trees as well, making the situation even worse. “I can’t build a house now. We are planning to build a small shed,” he said.

Like Ravinder, who hails from a small village on the Hatkoti-Jubbal highway, there are hundreds of people in the state who have lost their houses in the rain-induced events over the last three weeks. As per the State Disaster Management Authority, 728 houses and 246 shops have been decimated, while 7,234 houses have suffered partial damage.

Many of them would need generous support to have a roof back on their head, but the relief amount would fall woefully short of that. “The government will need to help us get back on our feet. Both my house and shops, the source of my livelihood, are gone. I am totally helpless at the moment, there’s no way I can take care of my family without help from the government,” said Ravinder Chauhan, a resident of Kharhan panchayat in Rampur.

Boulders and debris ripped apart a house in which four families lived in Khaneti in Shimla district. Tribune Photo: Lalit Kumar
In Kotgarh’s Khaneti, the families of Chaman Shyam, his brother and uncle are struggling to stay afloat after losing their house in a massive landslide. “We were four families living in our ancestral home. The massive landslide has deflated it. Two families are staying with relatives, and two are in a cooperative society building,” said Shyam.

Like most people who have lost their homes, he, too, seeks substantial help from the government. “For how long could you stay with relatives? One should be able to build at least two rooms through the relief amount,” he said.