Wayanad landslides: Pinarayi Vijayan says no special aid received from Centre

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan announced that the state government will once again request the Centre to provide appropriate assistance for the regions affected by the Wayanad landslides which occurred on July 30, 2024. The Chief Minister said that the state government has requested Rs 219.2 crore as emergency relief assistance, in addition to the central allocation for this year’s State Disaster Response Fund.
Further, Chief Minister Vijayan said that Rs 145.6 crore out of the allocated amount was sanctioned as the first instalment to be received for the State Disaster Response Fund.
He said, “It is understood from the Press Information Bureau press release of October 1 that the second instalment of Rs 145.6 crore has been sanctioned as an advance. This is just a normal procedure. There was a promise to continue to provide assistance to the state even during the Wayanad disaster phase. But we haven’t received that help yet.”
The Chief Minister said that so far the Centre has not provided any aid to the landslides-hit Wayanad district in Kerala. This comes nearly two months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited disaster-struck Wayanad on August 10, 2024. The Prime Minister had promised all necessary assistance to the state and said that funds would not be a constraint.
Briefing the media after a cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Vijayan also announced that the cabinet had found Nedumbala Estate in Meppadi Panchayat and Elstone Estate in Kalpetta Municipality as the most suitable areas to build model townships for the rehabilitation of the victims of the landslide.
He said that the rehabilitation will take place in two phases. In the first phase, the families who lost their homes and land in the calamity will be rehabilitated. Second phase rehabilitation would be for families whose houses are in now uninhabitable areas.
The chief minister also announced that the state’s women and child development department will provide Rs 10 lakh to the six children who lost both parents and Rs 5 lakh to the eight children who lost one parent in the Wayanad landslides.
The state government will also provide a government job to 24-year-old Shruthi, who lost her entire family in the Wayanad disaster. Following that, her fiancé, too, died in a car accident recently. The chief minister also said his government has decided to provide Rs 7 lakh to the family of Arjun, the driver from Kozhikode who drowned in Gangavali river following a landslide on July 16 at Shirur in Karnataka.