Opposition leader in the Kerala Assembly VD Satheesan on Tuesday questioned the credibility of the state government’s report on expenditure related to the Wayanad landslides, which claimed that Rs 75,000 was spent on the burial of a dead body.
Reacting to the government’s expenditure on the Wayanad disaster, Satheesan said in Kochi on Tuesday that the figures related to the Wayanad relief are incomprehensible to people with common sense. He added that the highly inflated rates in the government report have undermined the credibility of the Wayanad relief expenditure.
“It is hard to believe that any official with common sense in the secretariat would prepare such figures. The government needs to clarify whether these figures were prepared by the Disaster Management Department or the Revenue Department,” he said.
Coming down heavily on the government’s claim of spending Rs 75,000 on the burial of a dead body, Satheesan said, “Relatives collected many of the bodies. Space for their burial was provided by Harrisons Malayalam Limited (HML), facilitated by the intervention of the MLA and the panchayat. The NSS union president of the region arranged for digging the pits, and volunteers handled the burials. Given these facts, the government’s figure of Rs 75,000 spent on the burial of a dead body lacks credibility.”
Satheesan further said that the activists and members of the Hotels and Restaurants Association provided food to the volunteers in the field.
Regarding the Chief Minister’s office’s statement that the figures now released are from the memorandum submitted to the Centre, Satheesan asked whether central government officials would take it seriously if it contains unrealistic figures.
Stating that the government has prepared the memorandum in a confusing manner, Satheesan asked, “Will central government officials who examine the memorandum take it seriously if the figures are not even reasonable to a common man?”
“This is not how a memorandum should be prepared. If the memorandum is submitted in this manner, the amount due will not be received. We support the government and want to avoid controversy over the Wayanad relief. The government should be prepared to reconsider the issue. The state government should prepare a memorandum in accordance with SDRF norms,” he added.
In this context, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has slammed media reports regarding the expenditure incurred by the state government for relief measures during the Wayanad landslides.
In a statement, the Chief Minister’s Office termed the media reports, claiming a specific amount was spent on relief measures, as ‘baseless’.
“The state government submitted a memorandum to the Union government seeking urgent assistance for the disaster. The document outlined expected expenses under various heads were mentioned. However, the media has misrepresented this document as the amount spent by the government on disaster relief. This is baseless,” the statement said.
Nevertheless, some figures in the government report or memorandum related to the Wayanad disaster appear highly inflated. For instance, it was stated that Rs 2.76 crore was spent on the burial of 359 people, who died in the disaster, which implies a cost of Rs 75,000 per burial.
Although clothing was donated from across Kerala, the official figures now show that Rs 11 crore was spent on clothing for displaced individuals in the relief camps. It has been pointed out that activists and members of the Hotels and Restaurants Association provided food to the volunteers in the field.
Meanwhile, senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala has urged the state government to release the ‘actual’ figures for the relief work related to the Wayanad landslide disaster. “If wrong figures are provided, the assistance from the Centre could be in crisis,” he said.
Ramesh Chennithala urged the government to disclose the facts, including the details stated in its affidavit submitted to the Kerala High Court regarding the Wayanad relief operations.