Flood-hit Assam has received no aid under NDRF: Congress

Guwahati: The Congress has accused the Centre of depriving Assam of assistance under the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) at a time when the state is reeling from the first wave of floods this season with large scale devastation of cropland and loss of lives.
The chairman of the Assam PCC media department, Manjit Mahanta, alleged that while Gujarat received Rs 1,000 crore in 2021-22 under NDRF, Assam did not get a single penny. But the state received some assistance under the State Disaster Response Fund.
“In the last six years of the BJP rule, in 2018-19 and 2019-20 the Centre allotted nothing to Assam. In 2020-21, Assam received only Rs 44.37 crore. In 2021-22 Gujarat got Rs 1,000 crore, Maharashtra received Rs 701 crore, Odisha Rs 500 crore, West Bengal Rs 300 crore, Tamil Nadu Rs 213.51 crore, Jharkhand Rs 200 crore and Karnataka Rs 629.03 crore under NDRF. But the Narendra Modi government has not given Assam a single penny,” Mahanta alleged. He took potshots at chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma asking whether the CM has any logic to support the ‘disparity’ of the Modi government.
Mahanta also accused the state government of pushing the flood-prone state to the brink of disaster by not completing the under-construction embankments on time. “Due to wrong policies of the state government and favouritism, 477 schemes worth Rs 1,728.55 crore remain incomplete in the last two years. Eighty per cent work of the 210 schemes initiated in 2020-21with an estimated cost of Rs 565.44 crore is yet to be completed. On the other hand, work on another 267 schemes worth Rs 1,163.12 crore is also incomplete,” Mahanta said, alleging that the reason for the work not being completed is because they have been handed over to incompetent contractors.
The Congress alleged that the state government failed to initiate the embankment construction and repair work in the flood-prone areas in September-October last year when the floodwaters receded.
The state PCC has constituted three committees for conducting field study of the current flood situation. The committees are headed by three Congress legislators, Nurul Hooda, Basanta Das and Wajed Ali Choudhury. Even as the government has claimed that the relief work is on in full swing, the Congress alleged it is going on at a snail’s pace.