1 week ago
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Weeks after the governments of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka moved the Supreme Court seeking relief funds for calamities such as Cyclone Michaung, floods and drought in 2023, the Union government has ordered the release of ₹3,730.32 crore towards “relief assistance for natural calamity” from the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF).
An order by the Finance Ministry said that the amount is being released to the State governments based on the recommendation of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on April 24.
Also read | Centre’s drought relief is not even a quarter of amount required to be paid as per NDRF norms: Siddaramaiah
The MHA had approved an assistance of ₹3,498.82 crore for Karnataka in view of the drought faced by the State in 2023, however the net assistance to be released from the NDRF stood at ₹3,454.22 crore, the order said.
For the damage caused by Cyclone Michaung in December 2023 and the floods later in the month in southern Tamil Nadu, the MHA approved an assistance of ₹285.54 crore and ₹397.13 crore respectively. However the total funds disbursed under the NDRF stood at ₹115.49 crore and ₹160.61 crore.
On March 23, the Karnataka government had moved the Supreme Court against the Union government seeking release of drought relief funds as the latter had failed to do so despite an inter-Ministerial team submitting its report five months ago.
Similarly, the Tamil Nadu government moved the top court on April 3 seeking a direction to the Union government to release the funds.
Other than this, the order mentioned ₹44.60 crore [for Karnataka] and ₹406.57 crore [for Tamil Nadu] as the 50% of fund available in the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) account of the State as on April 1, 2023.
The SDRF is the primary fund available with State governments as part of their response to notified disasters to meet expenditure on providing immediate relief to victims. The Centre contributes 75% of the SDRF allocation for general category States and Union Territories and 90% for special category States (northeastern States, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu and Kashmir).
As per Section 46 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005, the “NDRF supplements the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) in case of a disaster of severe nature, provided adequate funds are not available in the SDRF.” The States have to submit utilisation certificates, pending which no future allocation is made.
