Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said on Wednesday that the government would soon release ₹500 crore to restore public infrastructure damaged in heavy rains and floods across Karnataka.

Speaking to mediapersons after a meeting with officials, MLAs, MLCs, and other public representatives of Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, and Uttara Kannada districts in Udupi on Wednesday, the Chief Minister said that the priority of the government was to restore damaged roads, small bridges and culverts, and make them motorable at the earliest. Fallen and damaged electricity poles and power supply lines would be restored using this fund. Additional funds would be released after reviewing the rain and flood situation in August.

Mr. Bommai said that Karnataka would seek funds from the Union government under NDRF after collating all data related to rain and flood-related damage in districts across the State.

Officials, NDRF, SDRF teams, district administrations and legislators were ready to take up relief works on a war footing. Last year, ₹1,600 crore was paid within a month to farmers to compensate for the crop loss on 14 lakh hectares. This year too compensation would be released immediately, he said.

Mysuru, Dakshina Kannada, Kodagu, and Udupi districts and the Karwar region received heavy rains in July. So far 32 people had died, five were missing, 34 people had been injured, around 300 people had been shifted to safer places, 14 care centres had been opened, four NDRF and SDRF teams had been deployed for rescue and relief works in these regions.

The Chief Minister said that for crop loss, NDRF had fixed an input subsidy of ₹6,800 per hectare for dry land crops. However, the State government was paying ₹13,600 per hectare. For wetland crops ₹25,000 would be paid per hectare as against the input subsidy of ₹13,500 fixed by the Union government. For horticultural crops, the Union government was providing an input subsidy of ₹18,000 per hectare, while the State government was giving ₹28,000 per hectare to help the farmers, Mr. Bommai said.

Though NDRF norms prescribe ₹3,200 compensation for house collapse as an immediate relief, the State government was giving ₹10,000. Damage to houses had been categorised as A, B, and C according to the extent of damage. For category A, ₹5 lakh was being provided as compensation for completely destroyed houses and ₹3 lakh was being given for B category of extensively damaged houses and ₹50,000 was being granted for category C, of partially destroyed houses. The amounts were far above the sum fixed by the Union government at₹95,000 for category A and B, and ₹5,000 for category C, the Chief Minister added.

Source - https://www.thehindu.com