The Union Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley has said that the central government would provide all possible support to the state government in order to give relief to the people of Rajasthan severely affected by the hailstorm. He also underlined the need for change in the norms for disaster relief.

Shri Jaitley was talking to the mediapersons on Sunday here at the Chief Minister Residence after visiting the disaster stricken areas of the state with the Union Minister of State for Small and Micro Industries Shri Giriraj Singh. Following the visit, he attended a high-level meeting with the Chief Minister Smt. Vasundhara Raje, other ministers and senior officers of the state government. During this, he admitted that Rajasthan suffered immense loss of human lives, livestock, crops and properties due to hailstorm and the centre would provide support to the government at the earliest to deal with the crisis.

The FM said that he himself had witnessed the disaster. Roofs of several houses got vanished and standing crops were seen destroyed till one’s vision. He said that the state government demanded additional means as well as some relaxations in disaster management norms to deal with situation. The Union government would consider these demands, so that the states would be at ease while dealing with the difficult time. Very soon, the state government would send a detailed memorandum on the hailstorm to the centre, which would be duly considered by the union government for providing support in relief and compensation to the farmers and others.

In the meeting, Chief Minister Smt. Raje said that tomato, orange, mustard, coriander, cumin and isabgol crops were totally damaged in the state. She said that amendments in the SDRF provisions would allow the state government to provide support to the affected people as per the requirement.

Chief Secretary Shri CS Rajan apprised the Union Ministers with the detailed information on the steps undertaken by the state government soon after the natural disaster struck two weeks ago.

During the meeting, Disaster Management and Relief Secretary Shri Rohit Kumar gave a presentation in which the state government highlighted various demands for relaxation in norms of the SDRF and additional support from the centre. These demands included relaxation for undertaking disaster relief works beyond the limit of 90 days; amendment in provisions for calculating compensation for the damaged crops by not limiting it to 50% damage to the crop and make it proportional for damages less than 50% as well; and revising the rates of agriculture input subsidy under the SRDF by linking it with the inflation.

The state government further requested the centre to amend the Mahatma Gandhi NREGS guidelines by raising the limit of employment days to 200 for the disaster affected families; providing 5 LMT wheat for providing it to Mahatma Gandhi NREGS workers toward payment of one-forth of their wages; changing the guidelines of the Member of Parliament Local Area Development fund so that the MPs could contribute Rs. 50 lakh to the Chief Minister Relief Fund; allowing for payment of power bills and aabiyana charges of the farmers from the SDRF, rescheduling of cooperative agricultural loan payments; and providing 3.15 LMT of wheat free of cost. The state government also underlined the need for amending the weather-based crop insurance scheme so that the compensations could be provided to farmers on actual damages incurred to the crops and their productivity.

The state Disaster Management and Relief Minister Shri Gulab Chand Kataria, Agriculture Minister Shri Prabhulal Saini, MLA Shri Ashok Parnami, Additional Chief Secretary Shri Ashok Sampatram, Principal Secretary Finance Shri PS Mehra, Principal Secretary Rural Development Shri Srimat Pande, Principal Secretary Cooperatives Shri Deepak Upreti, Principal Secretary Food Shri Subodh Agarwal, Principal Secretary Animal Husbandry Shri Rajeshwar Singh, Principal Secretary Energy Shri Sanjay Malhotra and other senior officials were present in the meeting.

Jaipur, 29 March 2015