Ex-gratia given to kin of students who died in Beas tragedy

Hyderabad, Telangana Home Minister N Narasimha Reddy distributed ex-gratia payments of Rs 1.50 lakh each to families of students of an engineering college here, who were washed away in the Beas river in Himachal Pradesh in June.

The ex-gratia payment was offered by the Himachal Pradesh state government. The Telangana state government had provided Rs 5 lakh to each of the families of students on July 17 as per Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao's orders.

Forty eight people, including students and lecturers, had gone to Himachal for an excursion on June 8 and 25 persons, including 24 students got washed away when flood gates of a dam on the Beas river were opened suddenly, according to an official note.

The Telangana Chief Minister spoke to his Himachal Pradesh counterpart and officials followed it up to find the dead bodies of the missing students.

The bodies of 24 victims were found and the one is yet to be found. The minister said that an inquiry is on into the tragedy and action would be taken accordingly.