Friday, October 14, 2011

Rs. 1,000 crore interim relief yet to arrive from Delhi

DETAILED SUBMISSIONS FOR Rs. 7,000 CRORE RELIEF PACKAGE BEING PREPAREDGANGTOK, 13 Oct: While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has already declared a Rs. 1,000 crore interim relief package [for damages caused by the earthquake of 18 September] for Sikkim, the process for submitting to the central government a comprehensive damage estimate for additional funds is on in full swing. The Rs. 1,000 crore package was an interim relief measure of the Centre and was announced from the central Natural Calamity Fund. This amount is yet to be received and at present, the relief compensation to victims is being disbursed from the State Natural Calamity Fund.
For the rest of the Rs. 6800 crores which is the damage estimate submitted by the Chief Minister to the Prime Minister during the latter’s visit to Sikkim, the State government is required to submit project reports.  A power point presentation had been arranged for the PM during his visit which demonstrated the extent of damages incurred by the state and estimated damages at Rs.6800 crore, as a lump sum, inform officials.
The State is now required to provide a detailed break up of this figure, or in other words, in terms of reconstruction costs, project reports by each affected department.
Officials also inform that the Central government had also agreed to provide the total fund required for the reconstruction of the Tashiling Secretariat.
The Chief Secretary today chaired a meeting of heads of various departments in order to prepare a memorandum cataloguing the total reconstruction cost of each department which will be submitted to the Centre shortly.
This will be a lump-sum estimate department-wise. Following, this each department will be required to submit detailed projects of reconstruction justifying the lump sum estimate in the memorandum.
In fact, the departments are already at work in preparing their respective projects. Once these are ready and forwarded to the central government the latter will assess the projects and release the additional funds to the state.
While officials are not speculating as to what the final amount computed will be, it is expected to hover around the Rs.7000 crore mark.

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