'Absolutely Shocking': Atishi Pulls Up Delhi Chief Secy Over Delay in Disbursal of Flood Relief Funds

Delhi Revenue Minister Atishi pulled up Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar on Saturday over laxity in the disbursal of flood relief amounts to affected families, stating that she was “shocked” when she found out that only 197 families had received the Rs 10,000 ex gratia relief.

Amid the ongoing tussle between the AAP government and its bureaucrats Atishi in a note to Kumar, citing a department meeting convened to discuss the disbursal of relief funds, said she was shocked to know that out of the 4,716 affected families staying in relief camps, only 197 had received the Rs 10,000 ex gratia relief sanctioned by the Delhi government.

”It has been 10 days since the Cabinet took the decision to give Rs 10,000 relief to families affected by floods. But in 10 days, 19 IAS and 18 DANICS officers – along with 6 DMs, 6 ADMs and 18 SDMS – have not been able to process this relief package for a mere 4,716 families,” the minister said.

On July 15, the Chief Secretary had appointed senior IAS and DANICS officers to oversee and support the district authorities in six flood-affected areas with their rescue, relief, and rehabilitation efforts.

”Given the number of officers deployed for flood relief and rehabilitation, each of these officers had to process the relief for 70 families. This means they had to provide relief to seven families per day. And that too has not been done,” the minister said in her note.

Such ”laxity” is ”absolutely shocking”, she said and wondered what would these officers’ normal workday be like when they were showing ”laxity” in times of emergency and disaster.

The minister issued a directive to the Chief Secretary, instructing him to deploy all officers on both Saturday and Sunday to expedite the processing of the ex gratia sum promised to the flood-affected people and ensure that the money is transferred to their bank accounts by Monday.

The minister also instructed the official to provide a status report on the money disbursed thus far to both her and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal by 6 pm on Monday.

Earlier, on Friday, the AAP dispensation and Principal Secretary (Home) Ashwini Kumar had a confrontation concerning the postponement of the National Capital Civil Services Authority meeting.

Prior to the incident, AAP ministers Saurabh Bharadwaj and Atishi had confronted the principal secretary (home) regarding the deployment of the army and NDRF to manage a breach in a drain regulator. This breach led to the flooding of the ITO area with Yamuna floodwater.

(With inputs from PTI)