The Kerala Government is reportedly planning to avail a long-term, low-interest loan from the World Bank for post-flood reconstruction in the infrastructure sector even as Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan admitted that the losses caused by the 12-day deluge could be far greater than the preliminary estimates.
The Government’s plan is to avail a long-term loan, a final decision on the size of which will be taken after drawing up a detailed estimate of losses caused by the floods and landslides, for reconstruction in the infrastructure sector. As per the preliminary official estimates, the State had suffered a loss of about Rs 20,000 crore due to the floods.
The Government’s plan is said to take a Rs 3,000-crore loan from the World Bank on long-term, low interest rate basis for reconstruction.
The World Bank’s representatives are expected to hold discussions with the Government at the earliest, probably on Wednesday itself. The bank has reportedly expressed readiness to assist the State in the post-flood reconstruction already.
The Kerala Government’s plan to avail a World Bank loan for post-flood reconstruction has come in the context of the Centre’s clarification that there were policy problems in accepting disaster assistance from foreign governments after some countries expressed willingness to provide assistance for the rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts of Kerala.
The Government of Kerala and most political parties in the State are unhappy about the reported reluctance of the Centre to accept assistance offered by UAE, Maldives and Thailand. According to Chief Minister Pinarayi, UAE had promised Prime Minister Narendra Modi a Rs 700-crore assistance for flood relief in Kerala.
However, the Centre was of the position that there had been no offer of any particular amount from the UAE and that the country’s Ambassador to India Ahmed Al Banna had said that his Government had not taken a formal and final decision on the size of the assistance. However, the Chief Minister has stood firm on his statement.
Many State Government officials and sources in the CPI(M) claimed that States could approach international agencies for loans on their own as per the country’s federal principles and that the Centre could not interfere in this. “I don’t know of any plan for availing a World Bank loan but the State has all the right to go for that,” said a top CPI(M) leader.
The State Government already has a sizeable amount in the Chief Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund and the Centre has released more than Rs 500 crore as advance assistance but
there are apprehensions that it would take several months for the full Central aid package to be delivered to the State and it presently does not have an idea about the size of that package.
Meanwhile, the Chief Minister on Tuesday admitted that the losses the State had suffered in the floods could be far greater than the preliminary estimates.
“It is a reality that the losses we have suffered in the disaster will be much bigger than our preliminary estimates,” he told newsmen in Thiruvananthapuram.
Asking the entire people of Kerala to show the same unity and spirit they had shown in the rescue and relief operations during the flood in the rehabilitation and reconstruction process also, he renewed the Government’s call to the salaried non-resident Keralites all over the world to donate a month’s pay each for the rehabilitation efforts.
“There is no need to give this in one go. This can be given in ten installments of three days’ salary a month so that it amounts to a month’s pay. Those who make this donation can have the satisfaction for their entire lives that they have contributed to the State’s rebuilding after such a disaster,” Pinarayi said.
Rejecting Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala’s allegation that the Government had not spent the entire money that came to the Chief Minister’s relief fund for the victims of last year’s Cyclone Ockhi, he claimed that not even a penny that had come to the Ockhi relief fund had been diverted for any other purpose.
“Not even a penny that had come to the CM’s Disaster Relief Fund or what we had got from the Centre for Ockhi relief was utilized for any other purpose. Is it proper for the Opposition to raise such baseless allegations at such a timeij It seems that he (Chennithala) has got a feeling that he cannot be Opposition leader if he doesn’t raise criticisms,” Pinarayi said.
At the same time, a three-day mega-mission with the participation of about 75,000 people from across the State was launched on Tuesday to clean up homes, roads and public places in Kuttanad, Kerala’s rice bowl, that has suffered flooding of unimaginable levels for rehabilitating the people who had been pushed to relief camps by the disaster.