Union Home Minister Amit Shah said in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday that the state government was given advance warning seven days before the devastating landslide in Kerala and nine NDRF teams were also sent there on July 23, but if the state government had become ‘alert’ even after seeing these teams, a lot could have been saved. Shah said this while responding to the clarifications sought by members of various parties on the attention motion brought in the Upper House regarding the situation arising due to the devastating landslide in Wayanad district of Kerala. He expressed condolences to the people who lost their lives in the landslide in Wayanad.
He said that many members had raised the issue of early warning system in the discussion. He said that he wants to tell the whole country through this House that on July 23, the Kerala government was given advance warning by the Government of India.
He said that after this warning was given seven days ago, another warning was given on 24 and 25 July and on 26 July it was said that “there will be heavy rainfall of more than 20 cm, there is a possibility of landslides, silt can also come down, people can die by getting buried under it.” Shah said that he did not want to say these things in the House but when some members said, “Please listen to us, please listen to us… then our (government’s) saying is, please read it, please read the warning that has been sent.” He said that there have been some state governments in this country who have worked on such advance warnings in the past and did not let anyone get injured in such disasters. He gave the example of the warning given to the previous Naveen Patnaik government of Odisha about the cyclone seven days in advance and said that only one person died in that cyclone, that too by mistake. Shah said that Gujarat was similarly warned of cyclone three days in advance and not even a single animal died there.
The Home Minister said that the Government of India has spent Rs 2000 crore on the early warning system after 2014 and states are warned seven days in advance.
He said that such warnings are put on the website which is also available for MPs. He said, “Some people do not even open the sites here, they just keep opening foreign sites. There will be no early warning from abroad, you will have to look at our site only.” He said that there is a system to give early warning about heat, storm, cyclone, rain and even lightning. He said that some states took advantage of this system and got results.
The Home Minister said that with his approval, nine teams of NDRF (National Disaster Response Force) left for Kerala by plane on July 23 itself because there was a possibility of landslides. He raised the question that why did the Kerala government not shift people from sensitive places from one place to another in time and if it did, then how did so many people die? On the interruption of the members, he said that people were shifted later, not earlier.
Shah said, “Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister in 2014 and this (related to early warning system) project started in 2016 and today if there is the best early warning system in the world, it is in India. India is one of the four countries today that give warning seven days in advance.”
Some members demanded that the Wayanad landslide incident be declared a national disaster so that the Kerala government can spend more than 10 percent of the State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF). Referring to this demand, the Home Minister said that this claim is completely wrong. He said that in any disaster, the state government can spend ten percent of the SDRF without any accounting.
He said that to spend the remaining 90 percent amount of SDRF, it does not have to take permission from the Government of India, but it has to spend the money as per the guidelines set by the Central Government so that this amount cannot be used for any other item.
Referring to the issue raised by the state members about not giving adequate funds to Bengal for disaster relief, the Home Minister said that the Center has sanctioned Rs 6,244 crore between 2014 and 2024. He said that as per the account sent by the state government till now, Rs 4,619 crore has been released so far. He said that the work of giving the account has to be done by the state government, the central government cannot do this work.
Shah said that the central government had sent nine battalions of NDRF to Kerala on July 23 and three more battalions have been sent there yesterday. He said, “If we had been alert even before the landing of the NDRF battalion, a lot could have been saved.” He said that he does not want to play politics with anyone because this is the time to stand with the government of Kerala, the people of Kerala. Amit Shah assured the House that forgetting party politics, the Narendra Modi government at the Center will “stand like a rock” with the people of Kerala and the Kerala government.
