Kerala minister flays delayed declaration of Wayanad landslide as 'disaster of severe nature'

Thiruvananthapuram: Criticising the Centre for taking five months before declaring Wayanad landslide as a ‘disaster of severe nature,’ Kerala Revenue Minister K Rajan said on Tuesday that it would have been more beneficial if the Centre’s announcement had come within two months after the calamity struck.

The state government had on Monday received an official communication from the Centre that the Wayanad landslides have been declared as a disaster of “severe nature,” recognising its intensity and impact for all practical purposes.

Addressing reporters here, Rajan said it would have been more beneficial if the Centre’s declaration had come within two months of the disaster.

“We can’t just understand why it took more than five months for the Centre to make such a declaration,” the minister said.

He said despite the Inter-Ministerial Central Team submitting its report to the Home ministry within a month of the disaster, The Centre’s high-level committee sat on it for five months to recognise the landslide as disaster of severe nature.

Rajan said the Centre had not yet responded to the state’s demand to write off the loans of the disaster-affected people and make new loans available for their rehabilitation under Section 13 of the 2005 Disaster Management Act.

He said on the state government’s request, the Kerala Bank had written off the loans of landslide-affected people of Wayanad district setting a model before the Centre.

The Centre’s communication also does not mention anything about the state’s request for Rs 219 crore as additional assistance for post-disaster recovery and reconstruction, he said.

If the Centre’s classification of the disaster had come earlier, the reconstruction work could have been better managed with the help of NGOs and other agencies, he said.

However, the government would now carry forward the reconstruction in Wayanad using the provisions envisaged in the Centre’s declaration, he said.

In a communication to the Kerala government on Monday, the Union Home Ministry explained that financial aid for such severe disasters is initially provided by the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF), which is then supplemented by the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) based on assessments conducted by the IMCT.

“However, keeping in view the intensity and magnitude of the Meppadi landslide disaster in Wayanad district, it has been considered by the IMCT as a disaster of severe nature for all practical purposes,” the communication said.

Massive landslides triggered by torrential rains in Chooralmala and Mundakkai regions in Wayanad district on July 30, had claimed over 200 lives and resulted in largescale destruction of property, leaving thousands of people homeless.