Neeraj Rohmetra
JAMMU, Nov 8: Interestingly, though State Government had been critical of the Centre for not expediting the much sought after Rs 44,000 crore special package for rehabilitation of flood victims, it has deliberately chosen to ‘ignore’ several reminders from the Union Home Ministry for submitting further details on the subject.
Official sources in the MHA told EXCELSIOR, “as a sequel to the visit of the high level team headed by Home Secretary, Anil Goswami on October 20 to the Kashmir region, the MHA had sought sector-wise complete details of the losses projected in the loss memo submitted by the State to the Prime Minister”.
“To expedite the process further, the Home Ministry has sent at least three reminders pertaining to the Special package to the State Government, but there seems to be little response on the matter”, sources categorically said adding, “for the past 20 days, we are pursuing the matter with State Government, but they have refused to provide the necessary details like project wise details of the damages, methods used by the authorities for calculation of losses, etc”.
To a pointed query about the allegations of several top officials of State over the ‘cold shoulder’ of the NDA to the package, sources said, “when there is little information forthcoming from the State despite several communications, what we can do?”
“Officials of the MHA have also apprised the Union Home Minister, Rajnath Singh and the Prime Minister Office (PMO) about the state of affairs as both of them were keen to ensure that all possible relief was extended to the flood-hit areas of the State at the earliest possible”, sources said.
Source told, “even the MHA officials were perturbed over the response of the State Government and wondered why the necessary details were being withheld by the concerned quarters”.
“By not submitting the details to the Centre, the NC-Congress coalition Government might put the blame on the former and even try to make the package a political issue in the forthcoming Assembly polls”, observers opined.
Pertinent to mention here that Prime Minister, Narendra Modi after conducting an aerial survey of the flood affected areas on September 8 and holding meetings with State administration in Jammu and Srinagar had announced Rs 1000 crore assistance in addition to Rs 1,100 crore already made available to the State Government through the State Disaster Relief Fund.
Subsequently, on his visit to the State on Diwali on October 24, the Prime Minister had announced a package of Rs 745 crore for flood victims, which included Rs 175 crore for the six major hospitals and Rs 570 crore for rebuilding homes damaged in the floods.
Earlier, on October 10 the Cabinet which met here under the chairmanship of Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah had approved the special financial package for submission to Government of India for providing of funds to the tune of Rs. 44, 000 cr approximately for rehabilitation of the people who suffered due to floods and for restoration of the damaged infrastructure.
The approved proposal under the special financial package included payment of ex-gratia relief against the loss of private structures to the tune of Rs. 9 lakh for fully damaged Pucca house, Rs. 6 lakh for fully damaged kucha house, Rs. 4 lakh for partially damaged kucha/pucca house including boundary walls and Rs. 1 lakh for other structures.
Thereafter, on October 17, two high level Central teams of various Ministries under the supervision of M Gopal Reddy, Joint Secretary in MHA, visited several districts in Jammu and Kashmir to assess damage caused by flash floods to Government infrastructure, private property and loss of lives last month.
Few days later, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh deputed Home Secretary Anil Goswami for detailed discussions of Rs 44,000 crores worth flood loss memo submitted by the State Government.
The team from MHA, which also has control of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) wanted not just sector wise damages but project and scheme wise losses to authenticate the damages.
The Central team wasn’t satisfied with the projection of losses of some departments and raised series of clarifications and wanted concerned Departments send the necessary details at the earliest possible.
Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner, Vinod Koul when contacted said, “all the relevant information which had been demanded by the MHA has been sent to them will in time. We have collected all details about the damaged infrastructure pertaining to PWD, agriculture, Power, Rural and other sent them by mail”.
“Even details demanded by team headed by Joint Secretary, M Gopal Reddy, which pertained to the our demand for Rs 3000 cr under State Disaster Relief Funds (SDRF) category have also been provided”, he added.
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