Kerala govt 'failed' to utilise central funds for Wayanad rehabilitation, alleges BJP

Thiruvananthapuram: The BJP on Sunday accused the Left government in Kerala of “failing” to utilise the central funds in the SDRF and the NDRF for the relief and rehabilitation of Wayanad landslide survivors and carrying out “fake propaganda” against the union government.

The saffron party said that the Narendra Modi government has provided sufficient funds to Kerala through the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) and the the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF).

“The Pinarayi government is sitting on available funds and blames the Centre,” senior BJP leader and Union Minister Prakash Javadekar alleged in a social media post.

In a hard-hitting X post, he said the Centre has allocated over Rs 500 crore for this purpose through SDRF, which already has a balance of approximately Rs 700 crore.

“The state has failed to utilise the Rs 700 crore in the calamity fund. People world over have donated to CM Relief fund.

This is also not used. This is the hypocrisy of LDF and UDF, and their fake propaganda has been exposed,” Javadekar said.

Referring to the recent criticism by the High Court against the state government over the Wayanad rehabilitation, he said the falsehood of the ruling LDF and the opposition UDF were exposed in the court.

The Kerala High Court on Saturday criticised the state government and its disaster management authority (SDMA), saying their figures regarding the funds in connection with rehabilitation of the landslides-hit areas of Wayanad are “inaccurate”.

The state government had, however, reiterated its demand for a special package and additional assistance to address the issues there.

Whatever amount there is in the SDRF, there were restrictions to spend from it due to the existing criteria and so the specific issues of landslide-hit areas could not be resolved with it, state Revenue Minister K Rajan had said.