NTPC has accelerated the process of paying compensation to “the immediate families of those who lost their lives in the natural disaster” that hit its Tapovan Vishnugad hydropower project under construction in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district on February 7.
NTPC is granting £ 20 in compensation to the agency’s immediate family of contract workers involved in building the NTPC project, the company said in a statement.
The state and the center have separately announced a remuneration package of 4 lakh and 2 lakh respectively. Compensation will also be provided against the Retirement Fund and Workers’ Compensation Act, which is covered by worker law in the £ 5 to £ 15 range, the statement added.
The company has not disclosed the exact number of employees in the affected project. On February 9, Interior Minister Amit Shah told parliament that, according to the Uttarakhand government, 139 people were missing in the Tapovan Vishnugad project, while 12 others had been rescued from the construction site.
Rescue efforts delivered their best results in the first hours after a glacier eruption resulted in massive flash floods that not only hit NTPC’s 520 MW project, but also washed away the operational 13.2 MW Rishi Ganga hydropower project. The hope of finding the workers alive has now diminished.
The close coordination of the NTPC engineering team with the rescue teams helped them understand the design of tunnels and saved these 12 lives, the company said.
