India rejected an offer by the United Arab Emirates government On 22nd August, to give US$100 million to a special fund for Kerala state after its floods which killed several people.
The move came despite calls to accept the Gulf state’s largesse by Kerala’s chief minister who has pleaded for more aid than India’s government has so far committed to.
“In line with the existing policy, the government is committed to meeting the requirements for relief and rehabilitation through domestic efforts,” the foreign ministry said in a statement explaining the move.
Now in nothing less than a rude shock, the Kerala government has received a bill of over Rs. 33 crore to be paid to the Controller of Defence Accounts.
This payment is towards the airlift services provided by the Indian Air Force during the massive deluge in August this year. Further, this amount also includes Rs. 2,03,15,000 for the airlift services provided to the state government of Kerala by the Air Force.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan expressed his astonishment and addressed the media saying,
“This bill should be seen as been sent by the central government. We in the recent past have also written to central government, stating that we were expecting the ration including the extra quota of rice and kerosene as free of charge, given as assistance during the floods. But we’ve not received any response to even that.”
“The estimated loss in the state has been around Rs. 31,000 crore. We received Rs. 600 crore from the Centre as emergency fund. And now we have to pay these bills from that money and will be left with even lesser amount. We shouldn’t be disappointed. The truth is that we have got much less than what we should have received as financial assistance from the Centre. Let’s hope that they will calculate all this and give us equivalent amount as assistance,” Mr Vijayan added.
Some prominent figures from Kerala and other social media users have reacted sharply to this payment demanded by the Centre in times of disaster and criticised BJP centre government
