Berhampur: The Centre is yet to
release money to Orissa from the National Disaster Response
Fund (NDRF) for relief and restoration activities in flood-hit
areas, a senior minister said.
The state government had submitted two memoranda seeking
Central assistance of Rs 3265 crore for carrying out relief
work in 21 districts.
The state government has prepared a Rs 1,208 crore plan
for restoration work in 45 days.
Though Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had written to
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram twice seeking immediate
assistance of Rs 1000 crore from NDRF to expedite relief and
restoration activities in 21 flood-hit districts, the Centre
is yet to release the funds, State Revenue and Disaster
Management Minister S N Patro said during a visit here
yesterday.
"The Chief Minister is likely to take up the issue with
the Union Home Minister during his next visit to New Delhi,"
he said.
Patro, however, said the Centre had released some amount
from the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) for relief and
restoration work in the flood hit areas.
The SDRF corpus for the state for 2011-12 was Rs 411.16
crore. The share of the Centre and state in the corpus is 75
and 25 per cent respectively.
As the state was hit by drought before the devastating
floods, government had taken several measures to assist the
farmers in both flood and drought-hit districts, he said.
These included providing non-paddy seeds at a subsidy
of 50 per cent, around 30,000 diesel pump sets at 50 per cent
subsidised rate and to restoration of at least 1000 lift
irrigation points by the end of December.
The Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) has released Rs
67 crore for this purpose, the minister said.
PTI
First Published: Saturday, October 15, 2011, 13:50