New Delhi/ Kochi: The unprecedented floods in Kerala have been declared “a calamity of severe nature”, the Union Home Ministry said on Monday.
Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu, who is also the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, read out an appeal signed by him and Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, urging the lawmakers to consider donating a month’s salary for the cause.
“Keeping in view the intensity and magnitude of the floods in Kerala, the government has declared this a calamity of a ‘severe nature’,” Naidu said.
Meanwhile, in the High Court, the Centre said the floods cannot be declared as a national disaster due to the lack of legal provisions for such a classification.
In an affidavit submitted in the High Court on Monday the government has stated that a disaster however big it may be cannot be classified as a national disaster.
The usage of national disaster has no meaning other than its popularity. The affidavit was submitted by the joint secretary of the Union Home Ministry.
Meanwhile, with the rescue operations in the state reaching the final phase, the government has decided to undertake health, sanitation and precautionary measures on a big scale right away.
The government will coordinate the activities of different agencies for unleashing a massive campaign for prevention and control of communicable disease post floods.
