The State Administrative Council’s decision to enhance compensation in cases of accidental death of humans and animals due to the negligence of Power Development Department is a significant move to apply a humanitarian balm on the wounds of especially those whose loved ones have perished or become handicapped due to human negligence at the hands of a reckless administration. In case of loss of life, the SAC has enhanced compensation from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 10 lakh. Where the victim suffers from total disability, the compensation amount has been increased from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 7.5 lakh and from Rs 30,000 to Rs 2 lakh in case of partial disability. The benefits have been extended to the electrocution of both civilians as well as the employees of PDD including regular, daily-rated workers, casual labour, work-charged, contingent paid and others. In case of death of cow, bull and horse, the compensation has been enhanced from Rs 5000 to Rs 20, 000 while in case of sheep or goat from Rs 1000 to Rs 5000. To prevent misuse of the new norms, the SAC has said that the compensation shall be paid to the victims who face partial or total disability subject to the condition that the accident is not triggered by them. This clause needs a little more clarification. Regardless, the decision of the Governor’s administration will go a long way in taking care of the families whose normal trajectories have been upend by these senseless tragedies. However, this is not the end of the battle. There are hundreds of poor people, especially daily wage workers whose lives have been devastated in these tragedies in previous years. In fact, many of the victims and their families have been driven to penury but no effort has been made by previous regimes to alleviate their sufferings. They have seen their social and economic fortunes sinking, yet no attempt has been made to support them through social or economic interventions by successive governments. That there is a lack of accountability in the system to make answerable those who allow such tragedies to happen in the first place makes the matter even worse. While enhancing compensation is a humanitarian gesture to provide succor to the affected victims and their families, the system needs to be fixed. Why should men at the helm of affairs in Power Development Department under whose supervision these tragedies occur get away scot-free while government bails them out with a modern version of ‘blood money’?