No respite from slugfest on drought relief

Instead of any drought relief, Karnataka is only witnessing a State-Centre slugfest. The State is undergoing an unprecedented drought with all but around 10 taluks declared droughtaffected.

Yet no funds have come from the Centre despite there being memorandums, meetings, visits and even a protest demonstration held in Delhi.

The latest admission by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman—who owes her Rajya Sabha membership to Karnataka—that the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) came in the way of allocating relief amount is only a half-truth and is not acceptable as a just plea.

The Karnataka Government had assessed the drought conditions as early as October 2023 following deficient Monsoon precipitation over the state.

It had intimated the Centre about the situation pleading for immediate relief allocation out of the Rs. 4.30 lakh crore tax money being collected from the State annually.

In fact, Chief Minister Mr. Siddramaiah, his cabinet ministers and legislators had held a protest demonstration at Jantar Mantar on February 7 this year to press State’s demand for early release of relief funds.

Mrs. Sitharaman who confessed to a delay in allocation of drought relief, termed it ‘unintentional’ citing procedural bottlenecks such as assessment report and inter-ministerial meeting and finally high level committee meeting.

She attributed the current inability to MCC coming into force. But looking at the progress of the matter, it is unmistakable that the State had begun pursuing the issue as early as October and had never been deficient in complying with the formalities.

The current attribution of delay to MCC is a lame excuse by a Central dispensation that has been reluctant to extend relief to non-BJP states.

Such allegations have been made even by Tamil Nadu which had suffered widespread losses due to cyclone and excessive rains in the first week of December 2023.