DC orders immediate relief for Chalaunthi four-lane affected families, sets 15-day deadline for compensation

A special meeting was held under the chairmanship of Deputy Commissioner Shimla Anupam Kashyap regarding roads and houses affected by four-lane construction work in Chalaunthi area of Shimla city.
Sub-Divisional Magistrate Shimla Rural and State Geologist, Himachal Pradesh, Shimla submitted a damage assessment report regarding houses located near Chalaunthi to the Deputy Commissioner. According to this report, residents have been shifted to safe locations. One house has been declared ‘uninhabitable’, the second has been assessed as temporarily unsafe and the remaining houses are under surveillance. The issue of the road repeatedly sinking has arisen in the meeting, which is creating unrest among the public and traffic congestion.
The Deputy Commissioner directed the representative of National Highway Authority of India to inform about the status of compensation. In response, the representative informed that necessary documents have been received from the district administration and have been sent to the concessionaire, who subsequently submitted them to the insurance company. The DC directed that all action in this regard should be completed within the next 15 days and information of action taken should be given to Sub-Divisional Magistrate Shimla Rural.
The Deputy Commissioner took a detailed report from the NHAI representative about the current status of repair work being done in affected houses in Chalaunthi. According to this, the representative of Bharat Construction Private Limited informed that work of filling cracks was in progress. However, at the request of local residents, it has been temporarily stopped due to snowfall. Work will resume as soon as the weather improves.
Anupam Kashyap has directed that cracks should be filled within one month and warning signals shown by the spectrometer should also be checked. Along with this, the report should be immediately given to Sub-Divisional Magistrate Shimla Rural.
Currently, no one is living in Kisan Bhawan Dhalli. However, rental accommodation has been provided to 6 affected families by the concessionaire. The DC directed that copies of rent agreement and related documents should be made available to Sub-Divisional Magistrate Shimla Rural within the next 10 days. He also directed that SDM Rural should be informed on a regular basis about all issues and their solutions.
During this, Additional District Magistrate Law and Order Pankaj Sharma, Additional District Magistrate Protocol Jyoti Rana, SDM Shimla Rural Manjeet Sharma and other stakeholders were present in the meeting.