Coming after the Kerala Assembly's unanimous resolution against the Citizenship Amendment Act, Union Home Minister Amit Shah's decision to grant nothing as flood relief to a state that had been ripped apart by two consecutive floods has the trappings of revenge.
However, a top National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) official told Onmanorama that it was not politics that left Kerala with nothing. “We found that Kerala's SDRF (State Disaster Response Fund) had unspent amount almost equal to the assistance it had sought for,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
Kerala had sought a calamity relief of Rs 2109.9 crore for the damages the state suffered during the 2019 floods. The Centre had on January 6 disbursed Rs 5908 crore to the SDRF of seven states. Kerala was not in the list.
(SDRF is a fund available to states to meet rescue and relief expenditures during a calamity. The Centre contributes 90 per cent of it.)
However, no official communication from the centre as to why relief was denied has not yet been received. “The Centre has not forwarded any letter or mail giving reasons but we have informally come to know that the Centre had rejected our request citing unspent money in the SDRF account,” a Revenue Department official said.
The revenue official agreed that some amount remains in the SDRF, though not Rs 2000 crore as the Centre claims. “What is to be noted is that even this amount has already been committed for works that are presently on,” the official said.
“But the Centre does not acknowledge the money committed to a work. For them only the expenditure matters. Unfortunately, we cannot pay the bills before a work is completed,” he added.
Here is the irony: Madhya Pradesh has over Rs 17,000 crore in its SDRF account but was still granted Rs 1749.73 crore as special assistance.
Sekhar Kuriakose, Head (Scientist), State Emergency Operations Centre, said that only about Rs 800 crore remain in the SDRF. “But this money is earmarked for works that are already on or for which administrative and technical sanctions have been given,” Kuriakose said.
This spending is for the repair of damages caused during the 2018 floods. “What about the destruction in 2019? How can the Centre expect us to use the money we got for the 2018 floods for what happened in 2019,” he said.
The Head Scientist of the State Emergency Operations Centre said that whenever there is a natural disaster, the Centre provides special assistance based on the state's request.
In 2016-17, there was severe drought. Kerala asked for a special assistance of Rs 1,800 crore but the Centre gave Rs 32 crore. In 2017, Cyclone Ockhi ravaged the coast. Kerala sought Rs 267 crore, and was given Rs 111 crore.
In 2018, Kerala suffered the worst floods in history. The United Nations had estimated a rebuild cost of Rs 27,000 crore. The Centre gave Rs 2904.85 crore, but it also charged Kerala for the rice distributed during the floods (Rs 206 crore) and the helicopters and special aircrafts used for emergency rescue (Rs 33.79 crore).
The 2019 floods did not drown the whole of Kerala like in 2018 but was still almost as devastating. The Centre now seems to say that the money already given as special assistance in the wake of the 2018 floods was enough to take care of the fresh 2019 catastrophe.
“Let's say you are poor and have been given money to treat Malaria. But if you happen to contract typhoid while suffering from Malaria, what do you do? Submit yourself to the Lord's mercy?” Kuriakose said.
He also said that if some money had remained unspent in the SDRF account, the Centre's SDRF guidelines are largely to blame. Take for instance the condition for road repair. The SDRF norms say that only Rs 60,000 can be given for the repair of a kilometre of road.
“This is not only inadequate, this is insane,” Kuriakose said. “Any person with basic understanding knows it will cost at least Rs 8 lakh to mend a kilometre. The rest of the money the state will have to squeeze out of its empty coffers. The ludicrous part is, the Centre considers as spending only the pittance taken from the SDRF. The most sizable spending is no spending at all in their eyes,” Kuriakose said.
Nearly Rs 4000 crore had been spent for flood relief during the 2018-19 fiscal. “At the most Rs 200 crore was taken from the SDRF. Does it mean we have spent only Rs 200 crore?” the disaster expert said.
The SDRF norms are so stingy that Kerala has decided to use the Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund to repair 11,000 kms of road, the worst affected stretches of the 50,000 kms that had suffered damages in the floods.
Late last year, Revenue Minister E Chandrasekharan had flown to Delhi with a proposal to revise the per kilometre assistance. He wanted the per km grant of Rs 60,000 revised to at least Rs 8 lakh. “The minister waited in vain for four days to get an audience with union Home Minister Amit Shah, who refused to see him,” the minister's office said.