Ex-gratia to Seppa fire victims announced

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT

Itagar, May 23: Aruchal Pradesh Chief Minister Kalikho Pul on Sunday announced ex-gratia relief for the fire victims of Seppa whose, houses were completely reduced to ashes in a devastating inferno on May 20 last.

As per the ex-gratia relief, an amount of Rs 1, 01,900 per household would be provided from the department of Disaster Magement and Rs one lakh each from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund which would be given through the district administration, an official report said here today.

Concerned at the repeated massive fire accidents over the last few months at Payum, Pasighat and at Seppa, the chief minister instructed the district administration to take up fire precautiory measures seriously.

He said that the government was planning to provide fire fighting equipments, Fire Brigade to all the district headquarters.

“To meet up the manpower shortages in fire stations across the state, fire man/fire fighter posts will be created by the government to deal with fire incidence,” he said adding, the government was also planning to open fire stations in all district headquarters and also proposed to install over head water tank and fire hydrants in schools, colleges and in market areas where the population are densely located.

Pul called upon the citizens of the state to take extra precautions while handling fire.

He appealed the people to adopt fire safety and precautiory measures to avert recurrence of such massive fire incidence.

He further advised the people not to build houses too congested but to maintain minimum distance between the houses in order to check spread of fires to multiple houses, in case of fire incidence, the report added.