CHANDIGARH: The Punjab Cabinet on Tuesday gave its approval to provide financial assistance and grant employment, on compassionate grounds, to the next of kin of the persons killed at Mosul in Iraq.
The state government had decided to provide employment to one dependent family member of the victims, as per their educational qualification and government's policy, besides ex-gratia amount of Rs. 5 lakh. It had also decided to continue with the monthly pension of Rs 20,000 being paid to the family members from the CM's Relief Fund till the time the jobs are provided.
On the directives of the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, an ex-gratia of Rs.5 lac each to 26 dependent family members amounting to Rs.1.30 crord has already been disbursed from the CM’s Relief Fund, said an official spokesperson, adding that, as per records, one victim had no legal heir.
Pertinently, the case of providing compassionate appointment to dependent family members of the 27 deceased Indians from Punjab does not fall within the purview of state policy. Therefore, relaxation in the policy was required for this purpose. Keeping in view the hardships faced by the victims’ families, the Cabinet decided to relax the existing policy of the state government as notified on November 21, 2002. However, the remaining conditions of the policy would remain applicable.
It may be recalled that in a tragic incident, 39 Indians were kidnapped and killed by ISIS in Mosul (Iraq) in 2014. The bodies of deceased were exhumed and DNA tests were conducted, following which the mortal remains of 27 deceased Indians from Punjab were brought back to Amritsar on April 3, 2018. The deceased hailed from eight districts, namely Amritsar, Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar, Sangrur, Kapurthala and Gurdaspur.
To curb the mushrooming of unplanned and haphazard constructions across the state, the cabinet also approved a draft ordinance to regularise all unauthorized constructions, which had come up till March 31, 2018. "The Cabinet felt that since these unauthorized constructions had been coming up for the past several years, it was not feasible to demolish them at this stage, leaving regularisation as the only possible recourse," said an official.