National calamity:
- In the recent past, there have been similar demands from states to declare certain events as natural disasters (such as the Uttarakhand flood in 2013, Cyclone Hudhud in Andhra Pradesh in 2014, and the Assam floods of 2015).
- However, there is no provision, executive or legal, to declare a natural calamity as a national calamity.
- During the recent monsoon session of Parliament, Union government informed Parliament that, “The existing guidelines of State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF)/ National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF), do not consider declaring a disaster as a ‘National Calamity’.”
Calamity of Severe Nature:
- Factors to be considered: The 10th Finance Commission (1995-2000), although did not define a ‘calamity of rare severity; but it stated that it would have to be adjudged on a case-to-case basis considering the –
- intensity and magnitude of the calamity,
- level of assistance needed,
- capacity of the state to tackle the problem etc.
- Examples: In the past, flash floods in Uttarakhand and Cyclone Hudhud have been classified as calamities of ‘severe nature’.
- Assistance: When a calamity is declared to be of ‘rare severity’/’severe nature’, the state receives the following assistance from centre –
- Calamity Relief Fund (CRF) is set up, with the corpus shared 3:1 between Centre and state.
- When resources in the CRF are inadequate, additional assistance is considered from the National Calamity Contingency Fund (NCCF), funded 100% by the Centre.
- The Centre also considers additional assistance from the NDRF.
- Grant of loans on concessional terms to the affected persons affected is also considered.
