India should not reject international assistance

This refers to the editorial, “Long haul” (August 21). Centre has sanctioned Rs 600 crore — peanuts in proportions to requirements. This is not to deny what it did to help the state — the deployment of personnel from the forces for rescue operations, the waiver of customs duty and GST on relief materials and additional allocation of 89,540 metric ton of rice and supply of relief materials, but to point out that it is stingy when it should be generous.

The reconstruction must get priority over the construction of giant statues and the waiver of loans to the tune of over four to five lakh crore rupees for corporate behemoths. The hues of the parties in power at the Centre and in the State should not matter. The people cannot be abandoned to their fate just because the deluge was compounded by human intervention in the Western Ghats to its detriment and unscientific management of water.

The report that the Central Government may turn down the offer of Rs 700 crore by UAE has caused consternation among the people of Kerala.

The reconstruction should not be subordinated to a false sense of national prestige and pride. Now that the disaster has made ‘receiving’ a need for us, we can accept aid from the UN and its agencies, foreign countries and international agencies to overcome paucity of funds for Kerala’s reconstruction.