Govt. releases relief aid for Karnataka, T.N.
For the damage caused by Cyclone Michaung in 2023 and the oods in December the same year in Tamil Nadu, the Union Home Ministry approved an assistance of ₹285.54 crore and ₹397.13 crore respectively. However, the total funds disbursed under the NDRF stood at ₹115.49 crore and ₹160.61 crore.
On March 23, the Karnataka government had moved the Supreme Court against the Union government seeking release of drought relief funds as the latter had failed to do so despite an inter-ministerial team submitting its report ve months ago. Similarly, the Tamil Nadu government moved the top court on April 3 seeking a direction to the Union government to release the funds.
Other than this, the order mentioned ₹44.60 crore (Karnataka) and ₹406.57 crore (Tamil Nadu) as the 50% of fund available in the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) account of the State as on April 1, 2023. The SDRF is the primary fund available with State governments as part of their response to notied disasters to meet expenditure on providing immediate relief to victims.
The Centre contributes 75% of the SDRF allocation for general category States and Union Territories and 90% for special category States (northeastern States, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu and Kashmir).
As per Section 46 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005, the “NDRF supplements the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) in case of a disaster of severe nature, provided adequate funds are not available in the SDRF”. The States have to submit utilisation certicates, pending which no future allocation is made.