Bhubaneswar: The state government Tuesday released Rs 102 crore to cyclone and flood-hit districts of Gajapati, Ganjam and Rayagada to provide gratuitous relief (GR) to the affected people.
Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) Bishnupada Sethi has written to these three district Collectors in this regard and fixed modalities for distribution of the cash relief announced earlier.
While Rs 89.60 crore has been released for Ganjam district, Rs 11 crore has been given to Gajapati and Rs 1.40 crore to Rayagada district. The government has allowed the Collectors to distribute the financial relief by hand to the affected people.
“As per the procedure, the GR amount is required to be credited to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries. Since the banking network is quite poor in many GPs, using direct benefit transfer (DBT) will deprive a number of affected people of the relief. Besides, Internet connectivity is quite poor now because of the cyclone for which the DBT mechanism will not be an effective channel of money transfer,” Sethi wrote to the Collectors.
As per the modalities, all ration card holders in Gajapati will be given Rs 1,050 each as advance towards their GR entitlement, while in the worst affected areas of Ganjam district, an advance of Rs 2,000 will be paid to the ration card holders.
However, Rs 1,000 will be paid to the ration card holders in other areas of Ganjam district and Gunupur sub-division of Rayagada district. All the beneficiaries covered under NFSA and State Food Security Scheme is eligible to get the benefit.
The collectors were asked to distribute the money in a transparent manner at GP level and video-graph the event.
PNN
