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Bhubaneswar, June 2: The state government has approved eight disasters as state-specific disasters, office of the Special Relief Commissioner said Tuesday.
SRC officials said the disasters which have been approved are lightning, heatwave, whirlwind, tornado, heavy rain, boat accident (other than during floods), drowning (other than during floods) and snakebite (other than during floods).
They said the government had declared the above eight disasters as local disasters after it was approved by the state executive committee in its meeting held under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary April 22 this year.
“People affected by these local disasters with the exception of heatwave will now get same relief assistance as prescribed for 12 other disasters approved by the Government of India under the State Disaster Response Fund and National Disaster Response Fund,” the SRC said.
It further said such relief assistance includes ex-gratia to the next of kin in case of death, assistance in case of permanent incapacitation or injury, food assistance, assistance for clothing and utensils, assistance for replacement of milch and draught animals lost, and house building assistance as applicable.
The scale of ex-gratia assistance for death due to sunstroke will however be `50,000 per deceased person. The SRC said 1,630 people died due to lightning in Orissa in the last five years (2010-15). Likewise, 265 persons died due to sunstroke and 96 due to boat accidents during the said period.
“The state government had been constantly pursuing the matter with the Government of India since long for declaration of ‘lightning’ and ’heatwave’ as disasters for funding of relief expenditure for the said disasters from the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF),” officials said. “The 14th Finance Commission accepted the above claims and recommended that up to 10 per cent of the funds available under the SDRF can be used by the state governments for natural disasters that they consider to be ‘disasters’ within the local context in the state and which are not included in the notified list of disasters of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India,” officials added.
