Dear friends !

The Darjeeling Press Guild today met the District Magistrate. He did maintain that the administration is trying to enhance the compensation for those who have lost their houses from Rs 6,000 to atleast Rs 60,000/-. We told him about our initiative in detail and has asked us to carry on with our work.

The DM has further maintained that when the government compensation comes he will not take an official note of the help we have extended to the 20 beneficiaries. This essentially means that despite our help those beneficiaries would not be deprived of any government help as and when it comes. The DM was however clear that it would take “quite a while” for the government funds to reach as survey and identification needs to go through a lot of official formalities.

The DM suggested that if the government funds come early we could think of providing construction materials so that these beneficiaries could construct bigger houses.

The Darjeeling Press Guild has already decided to speak to the beneficiaries about their requirement before taking any decision. We also want to wait till we collect the required funds before finally telling the beneficiaries about our plans. We think it would be inappropriate to promise them something as our effort would solely depend on the amount collected.