CHENNAI: The Union Home Ministry on Saturday said that it has approved Rs 522.34 crore of “additional central assistance” to Tamil Nadu for tackling flood impact. The announcement has come just a day before the PM’s visit to Rameswaram where he will inaugurate the new Pamban railway sea bridge and other projects.
The fund sanctioned by Home Minister Amit Shah is part of the Rs 1,280.35 crore approved for Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Puducherry and TN. Puducherry will get Rs 33.06 crore from the total corpus.
A statement issued by the union government said, “This additional assistance is over and above the funds released by the centre to states under State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) and Union Territorial Disaster Response Fund (UTDRF) already placed at the disposal of the states/UT”.
The statement, however, added that the central assistance was “subject to an adjustment of 50% of the opening balance for the year available in the (respective) SDRF”.
The state government has consistently criticised the centre for failing to grant disaster relief to TN despite the state suffering huge losses due to natural calamities. A few days ago, Minister K K S S R Ramachandran informed the Assembly that in 10 years of AIADMK rule, of the Rs 1,46,662 crore disaster aid sought from the centre, the state got only Rs 6,687 crore. Similarly, in the four years of DMK rule, Rs 50,924 crore was sought but only Rs 629 crore was allotted, he said.