KERALA: REBUILDING WAYANAD

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has always had a knack of finding form when crisis is upon the state, especially in the face of natural disasters. The 2018 mega floods tested his abilities as captain of Kerala, followed by the Coronavirus outbreak in 2020. His steady hand then had much to do with him earning a second innings in 2021.

- By Jeemon Jacob

Now another challenge awaits—rehabilitation of the survivors of the Wayanad landslide that officially killed 359 people and led to the loss of two whole villages—Mundakkai and Chooralmala—in the hilly Western Ghats in July 2024. Kerala had requested a Rs 2,219 crore special package for Wayanad's rehabilitation in August, but after five months, the Union Government finally classified the landslides as a “disaster of severe nature for all practical purposes” and offered little else extra. The Centre's rationale was that Kerala has enough funds in its State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF) allotment for 2024-25—some Rs 388 crore, out of which Rs 291.2 crore was the central share. The state also reported an SDRF balance of Rs 395 crore from previous years, New Delhi said, arguing that the corpus of nearly Rs 800 crore was enough to manage the relief efforts.