NEW DELHI: The Union government on Tuesday released Rs 5858.60 crore to 14 flood-affected states as central share from the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) and advance from the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF), officials in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said.
A senior MHA official said, “The released fund include Rs 1,492 crore to Maharashtra, Rs 1,036 crore to Andhra Pradesh, Rs 716 crore to Assam, Rs 655.60 crore to Bihar, Rs 600 crore to Gujarat, Rs 468 crore to West Bengal, Rs 416.80 crore to Telangana, Rs 145.60 crore to Kerala and Rs 189.20 crore to Himachal Pradesh, as all these states have been affected due to extremely heavy rainfall, floods and landslides during the south-west monsoon this year.”
The official, quoting a statement issued by the MHA, said, among the northeastern states Manipur got Rs 50 crore, Mizoram Rs 21.60 crore, Nagaland Rs 19.20 crore, Sikkim Rs 23.60 crore and Tripura has received Rs 25 crore.
Noting that the central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi stands shoulder to shoulder with the states affected by natural calamities in mitigating them, the MHA in the statement said, “Inter-Ministerial Central Teams (IMCTs) were sent in flood-affected states of Assam, Mizoram, Kerala, Tripura, Nagaland, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Manipur for an on-the-spot assessment of the damages.”
Further, IMCTs will be sent shortly for making an on-the-spot assessment of damage in states of Bihar and West Bengal, which have also recently been affected by floods, it said, adding that after the assessment reports of IMCTs are received, additional financial assistance from NDRF “will be approved to the disaster affected states, as per the established procedure”.
The statement further noted that so far more than Rs 14,958 crore has already been released to 21 states this year. “These include Rs 9,044.80 crore from SDRF to 21 States, Rs 4,528.66 crore from NDRF to 15 States and Rs 1,385.45 crore from State Disaster Mitigation Fund (SDMF) to 11 States.”
Besides financial assistance, the Centre has also provided all logistic support, including deployment of requisite NDRF, Army and Air Force teams to all the flood affected states, it said.