CM Himachal Sukhvinder Sigh today made a statement in the HP assembly regarding the amount released by the Central Government from the National Disaster Response Fund.
In his written statement, he said that many incidents of cloud bursts and floods occurred due to heavy rains in the state during Monsoon 2023, due to which there was a huge loss of life and property. More than 500 people lost their lives due to this disaster, which is impossible to compensate for. A Memorandum of Losses worth Rs 9905 crore was sent by the State Government to the Government of India dated 23.09.2023. An amount of Rs 200 crore was released as interim relief from the National Disaster Response Fund by the Government of India on 16.09.2023.
According to the provisions of the Relief Rules notified by the Government of India on July 11, 2023, on the basis of a Memorandum of Losses of Rs. 9905 crore, if the relief amount from the National Disaster Response Fund is provided to the state on the basis of minimum rates, then at least an amount of Rs 1658 crore was to be sanctioned to the state. But only an amount of Rs 633.73 crore has been approved by the Government of India on 19.12.2023. Out of this amount, Rs 200 crore has already been received as interim relief which has been released to all the districts and concerned departments for relief and rescue operations. Only an amount of Rs 397.98 crore has been released to the state by the Central Government on 19.12.2023, which is not sufficient to compensate for the devastation caused by the disaster in the state. This amount is only 6.40 percent of the loss caused in the state. The details of the amount released by the Government of India based on the Memorandum of Losses in the past few years are as follows:-
Year Memorandum of losses sent Approved through NDRF %age of memo
2018-19 2099.42 crore 396.89 crore 18.90
2019-20 1551,26 348.46 crore 22.46
2020-21 865.19 120.21 crore 13.89
2023-24 9905.77 633.73 crore 06.40
Apart from this, Post Disaster Needs Assessment has been conducted in the state by the State Government in collaboration with the National Disaster Management Authority, which has come to Rs. 9020 crores, and its report was sent to the Government of India on 25.11.2023 and its approval has been given by the Government of India.
In view of the unprecedented devastation in the state, the state government was expecting generous financial assistance from the Government of India. In this regard, the State Government was expecting financial assistance of Rs. 2000 thousand crores from the Central Government, and the State Legislative Assembly had also passed a resolution and sent a request to declare the disaster in Himachal Pradesh as a national disaster. However, the Government of India has not approved the relief amount from NDRF to the state as per the norms, due to which the state will face problems in compensating for the damage caused.
CM said that this injustice to the state by the lead center government is being done to get weightage in the polling of coming Lok Sabha elections. He asked the Jai Ram Thakur to lead the opposition in the HP assembly to accompany the state government to fight its case for financial help to complicate the rain disaster of the state.
On the other hand, Jai Ram Thakur said that the state government is knowingly not presenting its case to the center to gain the sympathy of the voters in the coming Lok Sabha elections.
Arvind Sharma is an award winning bi-lingual journalist with more than 20 years of experience.
He has worked with Divya Himachal, Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhasker, Vir Partap, Ajit and PTI.
In 2010, he was conferred the Himachal Kesri journalism award. He reports on the Tibetan Government in Exile, politics, sports, tourism and other topics. He lives in Dharamshala.
