Centre Enhances Its Contribution In State Disaster Response Fund

Bhubaneswar: The Centre has decided to enhance its contribution in the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) from 75 per cent to 90 per cent with effect from April 1, 2018.

The central government will contribute 90 per cent and all states will contribute 10 per cent to the SDRF. The additional contribution by the Centre in SDRF on this account will be Rs 1690.35 crore for the year 2018-19 and Rs 1,774.67 crore for the financial year 2019-20.

Under the Disaster Management Act 2005, a financial mechanism has been set up by way of National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) at national level and State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) at state level to meet the rescue and relief expenditure during any notified disaster.

The SDRF has been constituted in each state in which Centre, so far, had been contributing 75 per cent for General Category States and 90 per cent for Special Category States of hilly regions every year.

The SDRF is a resource available to the states to meet the expenses of relief operations of immediate nature, for a range of specified disasters.  At any point, the state government has fair amount of funds available under the SDRF. In case of any natural calamity beyond the coping capacity of a state, additional financial assistance, as per norms, is provided by the central government from NDRF, with 100 per cent funding by it.

Based on the recommendations of successive Finance Commission, the Centre approves the annual allocation to SDRF.

On the recommendations of 14^th Finance Commission, the government had significantly enhanced the allocation to SDRF by 82.30 per cent i.e. from Rs 33,580.93 crore during the years 2010-11 to 2014-15 to Rs 61,220 crore for the years 2015-16 to 2019-20.

In addition, the central government had provided additional financial assistance of Rs 32,142 crore from NDRF to states during 2014-2018 compared to Rs 14,098 crore provided during 2010-2014, which is also significantly higher.