A year on, most Air India crash kin get Tata aid
Live Events as a Reliable and Trusted News Source Addas a Reliable and Trusted News Source Add Now! (You can now subscribe to our (You
Live Events as a Reliable and Trusted News Source Addas a Reliable and Trusted News Source Add Now! (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel Ahmedabad: Families of 15 of the 260 persons killed in last year's Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad have declined to collect the personal belongings of their loved ones, the Tata Group, which owns the airline, said on Friday.E gratia payments of Rs 1 crore have been disbursed to 91 per cent of the families of the deceased, with remaining cases primarily constituting of situations in which documentation is incomplete, or where families have declined to accept payment, it said in a statement.Air India has provided an interim payment of Rs 25 lakh each to the families of the deceased to help address immediate financial needs. Interim compensation has been paid to families of 96 per cent of the deceased. The remaining cases are primarily those where documentation is incomplete or where there are ongoing family disputes, it said.In terms of personal belongings of the deceased, the process of returning them was carried out "with utmost respect, dignity and accuracy," the Tata Group said.Over 22,000 personal belongings were preserved and listed and families received information about each of these items through email, and a dedicated website was established, it added."Families of 15 of the deceased have declined to take the personal belongings," it said."Of the associated personal belongings pertaining to 187 deceased, personal belongings have been returned for 139 deceased in India and in the UK, with remaining cases primarily constituting situations in which documentation is incomplete, or where families have declined to accept personal belongings," it said.Associated personal belongings are items that could be confidently linked to an individual based on documentation, labelling, location of recovery, or verified identifiers.
Each of these items has undergone multiple layers of checking to ensure that the final set being returned to relatives is accurate and complete, the company said."Of the unassociated personal belongings pertaining to 77 deceased, personal belongings have been returned to families of 60 deceased in India and in the UK, with remaining cases primarily constituting of situations in which documentation is incomplete, or where families have declined to accept personal belongings," it further said.Unassociated personal belongings are those that could not be directly linked to any specific individual. These may include belongings without names, or objects recovered in a manner that did not allow us to link them conclusively to an individual.Belongings have been handed over physically and personally in a manner that honours families' grief and privacy. The process has been carried out after taking appropriate regulatory clearances, the Tata Group said.Of the 25 digital devices recovered, 16 have been returned to the respective families, with remaining cases primarily constituting situations in which documentation is incomplete, or where families have declined to accept them, it added.The company said the ex gratia of Rs 1 crore was announced as part of Tata group's philanthropic commitments and went beyond legal compensation requirements.It further said 94 per cent of those who were injured on the ground have either got one-time full and final compensation or interim compensation, based on the nature of injury incurred and any loss of livelihood.
The BriefWire