They’re digging up my hometown, demolishing all that was built here over decades, without any regard for the wellbeing of those who were seeing the cracks inside their homes widen for the last two years.

We’ve been trying to raise the alarm over this situation since 2019, but to no avail. Even as the first cracks started to appear, the authorities went on with their ‘development’ projects that literally dug holes in the ground beneath our feet.

As I’m seeing my relatives and friends distraught as their homes are being felled in front of their eyes. To make matters worse, the state government is providing just Rs 4,000 as assistance per month for an entire family, and has only now announced an immediate interim assistance of Rs 1.5 lakhs for affected families. People who’ve lost their homes built with years of toil, are being evacuated to ‘safer’ spots in Joshimath itself and having to live out this uncertain time in their lives in a single room. And we don’t know for how long the seemingly ‘safer’ spots in the town will remain safe, or if they too will have to be demolished.

You may have watched and enjoyed those movies that depict an apocalypse but we’re actually living it. All our homes and business establishments have been marked with an ‘X’, which means they’ll be demolished too. But I really don’t know what this will achieve. The situation has worsened to such an extent that even open fields, with no roads or any sort of construction, are seeing huge cracks opening up in the ground.

As I write this, the weather today has turned ominous and rain has been forecast for the coming few days, which could trigger further landslides.

Sign my petition to ask the government to better the assistance that it’s providing to the residents of Joshimath. Rs 4,000 or even Rs 1.5 lakh is not enough for an entire family that has lost not just their home but even their means of livelihood and will have to live out an extremely tense time in their lives for the next six months or so, if not more. Families whose homes and business establishments are being felled should be provided with a fair price for the land that they own, which will most likely be unfit for use in the future.