Assam flood policy: Flip-flop on national calamity tag hurting state

Representational Image (File photo)

Every year three to four waves of flood wreak havoc in the northeastern state of Assam, killing humans and animals, marooning towns and villages and causing damage to critical infrastructure such as roads and bridges. According to an Assam government report, the state loses Rs 200 crore on an average annually on account of this monsoon misery. For a state mostly dependent on its agriculture, this is a substantial loss as floodwaters destroy thousands of hectares of standing crops every year.

Needless to say, successive governments have either neglected or failed to come up with a long-term solution to the recurring problem of flood and the erosion of river banks of the Brahmaputra and its tributaries. Even the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which had promised to work for “rapid development” of the Northeast in the run-up to the 2014 general election, has failed to meet expectation of the people in the past six years.

Sample this: BJP’s 2014 election manifesto had listed Assam’s annual flood problem and river water management as a big focus area. Two years later, the same party released Assam Vision Document 2016-2025 laying special emphasis on “flood and erosion control”. In hindsight, all this appeared to be just poll gimmicks, as the party’s response toward the flood problem continues to be a kneejerk one.

BJP’s flip-flop on national calamity’ tag

For several years now, various organisations, including the influential All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), have been demanding that Assam’s flood problem be declared as a national calamity so that the state gets the maximum funding from the Centre for relief and rehabilitation work. Political parties have also been joining this chorus from time to time. The BJP itself had raised this demand in 2012 describing the Rs 500-crore relief package announced by then Congress Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for Assam floods as “meagre”.

But the party backtracked after coming to power. “Under the existing scheme of state disaster response fund/national disaster response fund of the ministry of home affairs, there is no such provision to declare any disaster including floods as a national problem/calamity,” Union Minister of State for Jal Shakti Rattan Lal Kataria had told Parliament on July 18 last year in response to a question from Assam Congress lawmaker Pradyut Bordoloi.

While it is true that there is no such classification called “national calamity”, a natural disaster may be declared to be of “severe nature” if it affects one-third of the population of a state. In such a scenario, financial assistance may be sought from the National Calamity Contingency Fund (NCCF), managed by the department of expenditure (DOE) under the ministry of finance.

The argument given by the Opposition Congress and other organisations from Assam was that the state deserves special attention as the state government alone cannot solve the recurring problem of flood and erosion in the absence of sufficient fund and technical exepertise.

Central relief ‘extremely meagre’

Even the NITI Aayog, India’s apex planning body, has pointed out in its report titled ‘Strategy for Assam’s Development’ that “Central relief for floods in Assam is extremely meagre compared to the havoc created by floods and in comparison to allocation for floods to other states”.

According to information obtained from the DOE website, Assam received only Rs 211.55 crore from NCCF between 2000-01 and 2007-08 (the period for which these figures are available) compared to Gujarat’s Rs 2,540 crore, Tamil Nadu’s Rs 2,420 crore and Maharashtra Rs 1,686 crore, among others. This indicates that the state might not have made adequate representation to the Centre regarding funds.

In addition, Assam’s allocation under the Flood Management Programme (FMP) is pretty low. FMP is aimed at providing “central assistance to the state governments for undertaking the works related to river management, flood control, anti-erosion, drainage development, flood proofing including flood prone area development programme” among others.

In 2018-19, Assam received Rs 142 crore under FMP compared to states like Himachal Pradesh which bagged Rs 162 crore, according to latest data available with the Central Water Commission.

To make matters worse, a controversy broke out a couple of years ago after home ministry data showed that no amount had been released to Assam from National Disaster Response Fund between 2014-15 and 2017-18, probably due to an accounting error.

Claims and counterclaims

While Assam has often complained of inadequate central assistance, the facts on the ground are that the northeastern state and several others have failed to utilise their funds, Union home ministry officials said earlier this year.

They also claimed that Assam had diverted disaster funds given to it in 2019 to its general account to meet other expenses, The Indian Express reported. The officials clarified that if the states are unable to utilise them, they are denied fresh funds or provided less funds, the report said.

In January, the ministry approved an additional amount of over Rs 600 crore to Assam from the National Disaster Response Fund to meet flood relief expenses incurred last year. Besides, the state has received the first instalment, Rs 386 crore, out of total allocation of Rs 858 crore under the State Disaster Response Mitigation Fund for the year 2020-2021.

Jayanta Kalita is a senior journalist and author based in Delhi. He writes on issues related to India’s Northeast. The views are personal.