Karnataka, Gujarat get central aid for natural disasters

The centre on Monday approved assistance from the National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF) to Karnataka and Gujarat to deal with the losses caused by drought and flood in the two states.

Karnataka, which declared its 136 taluks across 27 of its 30 districts as drought-hit in August, was given Rs. 1,540 crore and Gujarat, which was hit by a massive flood in the same month, got an amount of Rs. 562 crore from the NDRF.

A high level meeting for Central assistance to states affected by natural disasters allocated the funds to the affected states.

The meeting, chaired by Union Home Minister Rajanth Singh, was attended by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Vice-Chairman NITI Aayog Arvind Panagariya, Union Minister of State for Agriculture Sanjeev Kumar Balyan, Agriculture Secretary Siraj Hussain and other senior officers.