Centre keeps Karnataka waiting on flood relief

Karnataka will have to wait a little longer for central funds as the Union government’s assessment of damage due to the July-August floods is not matching with the estimates of the state government.

Senior officials led by Karnataka Revenue Secretary T K Anil Kumar on Thursday offered clarifications to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) about how they arrived at the losses. They will be submitting a detailed report in another week, providing more clarification following which funds may start flowing from the Centre.

So far, the Centre has not released any money for flood relief from the National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF). This had triggered a political row, with the opposition Congress and JD(S) taking on the ruling BJP for the “delay” despite Home Minister Amit Shah and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman having visited the affected region.

On Wednesday, Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa said the Centre would be announcing flood relief in a couple of days. He had made the same statement on September 22 after a meeting with Shah.

The Karnataka government submitted a report to the MHA, claiming damage to the tune of around Rs 35,160.81 crore due to the floods. As many as 103 taluks in 22 districts were affected and over 80 people killed in the floods.

However, the assessment of a central team was much lesser than the state government’s report.

While the state government has said in its report that 2.5 lakh houses were completely damaged, the central team was of the view that this number was inflated and their count was 1.15 lakh only.

Sources said there were a large number of mud houses in north Karnataka which were partially or completely destroyed during the floods. The state officials’ argument is that even if a mud house is partially collapsed, it is not fit for residing and has to be rebuilt in full, indicating that they have included all cases of mud house collapse in their count.

Similarly, sources said, the central and state assessment vary when it comes to crop loss and damage to roads and bridges.

On Tuesday, Congress Legislature Party leader Siddaramaiah tweeted, “More than 60 days since parts Karnataka suffered from floods. No shelter, nothing to eat, cattle dying, crops lost-but response from @narendramodi is missing. Why this hatred towards Karnataka? What are our 25 MPs from BJP doing? #NAMOMissing, pls help us find him.”