Overview

• The Registrar General under the Union Home Ministry cleared special registration, drawing on 2021 Chamoli disaster guidelines to legally presume the missing dead.
• A September 25 directive instructs district magistrates and registrars to open cases in which the sub-divisional magistrate conducts an inquiry and the district magistrate serves as appellate authority.
• Each case will be publicly notified for 30 days and decided on evidence such as affidavits, police reports, witness statements and mobile call records before a certificate is issued.
• Once certified, next of kin become eligible for Rs 5 lakh in relief, and a rehabilitation committee has been formed to support long-term housing and livelihood recovery.
• Two bodies have been recovered and 67 people, including 25 Nepali nationals, remain untraced after the August 5 flash floods that a state panel preliminarily attributes to intense localised rainfall rather than a glacial lake outburst.