The Uttarakhand government has issued a notification stating that it has initiated the process of declaring 136 missing persons after the disastrous flash floods as "presumed dead".

As on Monday, a total of 68 bodies were recovered while 136 still remain missing. Out of the recovered bodies, 14 were found from the tunnel at the NTC hydropower project site, while the rest were recovered from other upstream and downstream areas.

It is to mention that as per the Declarations of Death Act, 2002, people who have gone missing are usually declared dead if they have not found or heard of for seven years.

However, officials said the move has been initiated to speed up the process of giving compensation to the affected families. The Uttarakhand government has announced compensation of Rs 4 lakh for the deceased families while an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh has been announced by the Centre, Times of India reported.

They reiterated that in the case of the 2013 Kedarnath tragedy, too, the missing were declared dead before the seven-year period.