Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting the Centre to declare coastal erosion as a natural disaster and also to double the disaster relief amount.
“Kerala has a coastline of 590 kms spread across nine coastal districts. The Central Government has permission to provide assistance to the people in the event of state-level disasters from the annual allocation to SDRF and NDRF for up to 10%,” the CM said in his letter.
“Accordingly, Kerala has already declared coastal erosion as a state-level disaster. However, the central government has not taken such a decision. In the current situation, SDRF-NDRF assistance cannot be given for losses due to coastal erosion. Therefore, the state has demanded that coastal erosion be declared a disaster,” the CM said.
The State Government is currently providing assistance in the case of natural calamities as per the recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission.
The Central Government is in the process of revising the norms relating to relief to the people through SDRMF and NDRMF as per the recommendations of the 15th Finance Commission.
“In the wake of Covid 19, increasing the relief amount to the people would be beneficial to the state government. The Prime Minister has been asked to double the relief available when the norms are revised,” he added.
