Kerala to declare Wayanad landslide 'state disaster', as Centre declines 'national disaster' tag

Meppadi (Wayanad): The Union government has declined to declare the Wayanad landslides a national disaster, prompting the Kerala government to issue a government order on Friday declaring the area in the jurisdiction of Meppadi Panchayat as "disaster affected" even as the official death toll crossed 200.

"They are not ready to declare it as a national disaster. We, from the cabinet, have already written to the central government to declare this as a national disaster. But they are not ready. They say there is a legal problem. We will declare it a state disaster," Kerala Revenue Minister K Rajan told DH over phone.

The Kerala government's order is likely to set the stage for a political feud as ruling and opposition parties in the state have urged the Union government to declare the landslide a national disaster to access additional funds.

The Friday order stated that the landslide and its immediate impacts affected the life, livelihood and property in Meppadi Grama Panchayath covering Kottapadi Village, Vellarmala Village and Thrikkaipetta Village of Vythiri Taluk of Wayanad.

"In light of the above situation, Meppadi Grama Panchayath including Kottapadi Village, Vellarmala Village and Thrikkaipetta Village of Vythiri Taluk of Wayanad district is declared as disaster affected from 30-7-2024. A formal gazette notification will be issued subsequently," the order accessed by DH said.

Asked about the importance of the order, Rajan said the notification will recognise the incident as a state disaster and enable additional compensation. "If a man's house has been demolished by the landslide, we can only give Rs 1,01,600. By declaring it as 'state disaster', we can apply for the Chief Minister's Disaster Relief Fund," he explained.

On the need for the national disaster tag, the Revenue Minister said the central compensation will help in construction of houses and rehabilitation of the displaced persons.

Among other things, declaring such an event a national disaster will help set up a relief fund at the national level where about 75% of the corpus comes from the Union government and the remaining is provided by the state government. However, there has been no clarity on what incident qualifies for the tag of 'national disaster' tag.

Sources said Kerala's notification will bring attention to the state government's demand for declaring the calamity a national disaster. "Declaring an event as a national disaster will ensure that the support for the state automatically goes up at national level. However, if the Union government doesn't see it in the same way, a state-Centre fight will follow," the source told DH.

However, Rajan said the priority of the Kerala government was to rescue and recover and then focus on rehabilitation. "With our notification, we are going to come up with a Kerala model in rehabilitation. We will go to the central government after arriving at the final count of all the damages caused by the landslide. There is no space for political slugfest. The focus will remain on rehabilitation," he said.