Streamlining disaster fund disbursement

The Assam government's move to fast-track flood damage assessment and disbursement of rehabilitation grants is laudable. If implemented meticulously it will improve the utilization of funds allocated under the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) and enable the state to seek more assistance under National Disaster Response Fund to replenish SDRF. The rehabilitation of flood-affected people is key to building resilience against recurring and ravaging floods in the state. The State Government has fixed July 10 for completion of the damage assessment exercise and July 30 for disbursement of rehabilitation grants. With breaches occurring in many embankments and heavy rainfall forecast by the India Meteorological Department in Assam and neighbouring hill states in the coming days, more waves of floods may occur post-July. This may require the State Government to extend the damage-assessment exercise beyond July 10 deadline in some affected areas. Nevertheless, the initiation of the process will help fast track disbursement of rehabilitation grants in most places, and this will be a huge relief for the affected population. The delay in disbursement of rehabilitation grants pushes the downtrodden affected families into penury. Loss of standing crops and damage to houses and property make it nearly impossible to rebuild their lives until they have a steady income and enough savings to undertake construction or repair of their damaged houses and acquire new assets. The Central Government releases its share of SDRF to State Governments in two instalments in June and December, while the responsibility for distribution of relief, to the affected people at the local level, lies with the State Government. The 15th Finance Commission recommended the creation of two disaster funds- State Disaster Risk Management Fund (SDRMF) and the National Disaster Risk Management Fund (NDRMF) to cover the entire disaster management cycle of prevention, preparedness, response, mitigation, recovery, and reconstruction. The SDRMF has two components- SDRF and SDMF (State Disaster Management Fund) with weightage of 80% and 20% respectively. Similarly, the NDRMF also has two components – NDRF and NDMF. Within the SDRF/NDRF allocations of 80%, there are three sub-allocations -Response and Relief (40%), Recovery and Reconstruction (30%) and Preparedness and Capacity Building (10%). The 15th Finance Commission recommended that mitigation of funds under SDMF and NDMF should typically provide small grants for community-based local initiatives to mitigate hazards through soft measures, rather than through hard measures and large-scale mitigation interventions to be pursued through regular development schemes. The funding windows of SDRF and SDMF as well as NDRF and NDMF are not interchangeable. The Finance Commission emphasized the importance of the role of district administration in disaster management. State governments must allocate resources to districts for preparedness and mitigation on an annual basis, empower the district administration for improving disaster preparedness at the local level and manage the entire fund at the state level is a practice which needs to change, the 15th Finance Commission said in its final report. The issue of mismatch between Assam's financial requirement for adequate relief and rehabilitation to flood affected and restoration work and actual disaster funds available dominates the public discourse during and post-disaster periods. The State Government meeting the norms of the revised guidelines on constitution and administration of SDRF and NDRF as well as guidelines on SDMF issued earlier in January is critical to ensure the required flow of disaster funds. The revised guidelines say that upon a request made by a State, not having adequate balance funds in its SDRF, and in case the natural calamities are beyond the coping capacity of the State Government, Ministry of Home Affairs or the Ministry of Agriculture, as the case may be, will ascertain that State Government concerned has submitted its memorandum strictly in conformity with the approved guidelines/formats, showing sector/ item-wise damage with proper justification of additional requirement of funds, and assess whether a case for additional assistance from NDRF is made out under these guidelines and the same is approved as per items and norms of assistance under SDRF/ NDRF. In the aftermath of the natural calamity of 'severe nature,' an Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) will be constituted immediately by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), which will visit the affected areas of the State to have a first-hand assessment of damages caused and relief work carried out by the State administration. Official data on cumulative loss/damage due to floods and landslides in Assam show that so far 135 lives have been lost, 16,703 houses have been fully damaged, 1,11,563 houses have been partially damaged, and standing crop on 2.28 lakh hectares destroyed, the figures will keep rising. Building capacities of the district administration to furnish detailed information on the relief and rehabilitation work and utilisation of SDRF assistance is crucial for the State Government to submit a detailed memorandum to justify the additional requirement of funds from NDRF. Providing adequate relief and rehabilitation grants to affected households depends on streamlining SDRF disbursements.