Sanchar Saathi portal comes to Rlys rescue in identifying 65 bodies

new delhi: At the time when Union Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had launched Sanchar Saathi portal, which allows users to block and track their lost or stolen mobile phones across India, he might have not even thought that the same portal would prove to be saviour in identifying the bodies of passengers killed in the Balasore tragic rail mishap in which 288 people have died and over 1,100 injured.

“Soon after the incident, both the Odisha government and Indian Railways came into swift action and started the rescue operation on a mission mode. Bodies were taken out from coaches and the process of identification of deceased passengers started to expedite the process of ex-gratia distribution,” a senior railways official said.

As the enhanced ex-gratia amount was announced by Vaishnaw, who also holds the portfolio of the Minister for Railways, just after a few hours of the accident, multiple claimants surfaced to claim the body, the official said.

There were some clear cases of identity match, so the ministry handed over the body and ex-gratia amount to the next kin of the deceased after following all the procedures to authenticate the identity.

The ministry has announced ex-gratia amount of Rs 10 lakh in case of death, Rs 2 lakh towards grievous injury and Rs 50,000 for minor injuries. In the case of non-identification of bodies, the Sanchar Saathi portal came to the rescue of railways officials as the claimant’s relation was established with the deceased through the portal by using photo of the person, the official said, adding that the ministry was able to identify over 65 bodies with the help of the portal.

Explaining about the process followed to identify the bodies, the official said: “Given that the portal is meant to track the mobile connections used against the valid identity of the user, so we used the photo the deceased to find out the details of the deceased such as name and number as well as the document submitted for getting the connection.” “In one case, it was found that 60 connections were issued in the name of one person.

So we called on active numbers to enquire about the family members and finally the body was identified by the relatives of the deceased,” the official said, adding that over 65 bodies have been identified through the Sanchar Saathi portal. However, the portal is effective in establishing the identity of defaced bodies.

As per the latest update, 205 bodies have been identified and 83 bodies are yet to be identified.