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A ration card is all that stands between Shravan Kumar, a 32-year-old physically challenged labourer, and succour.
Kumar lost his leg, wife and daughter in the Sector-20 wall collapse on July 12 last year, and has been running from pillar to post to secure Rs 4 lakh announced as compensation by the Panchkula administration.
Although living in the city for the last eight years, Kumar does not possess a ration card as he did not apply for one.
I am an illiterate man and did not know where to go and whom to ask about the procedure to apply for a card, said Kumar. But such answers do not melt the red tape that characterises the Indian bureaucracy.
Deputy Commissioner of Panchkula, Rajender Kataria, told Newsline: When compensation is announced, a certain set of terms and conditions are to be followed. The compensation amount can be given only to a domicile of the state and we need proof of that.
On a softer note, Kataria added that he will try to help the labourer in every possible manner, including financial help from the district administration funds.
I lost everything that night. Now, I am the only earning hand left in the family my two surviving sons, Akhilesh (9) and Rajnesh (12), are too young to work. Earning a livelihood has become impossible and I have been forced to sell my modest landholdings to secure money for my treatment. We survive on the scraps of food handed out to us by other labourers, said Kumar.
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