Plea in SC to allow Kerala to accept foreign aid

An artiste dressed as King Mahabali shakes hands with a child during Onam celebrations at a flood-relief camp in Kochi on Saturday. (PTI)

K.M. Rakesh, TT, Aug 26, 2018, Bangalore: A CPI parliamentarian and former minister from Kerala has petitioned the Supreme Court to direct the Centre to allow the state government to accept foreign aid for the rehabilitation of its flood victims.

Rajya Sabha member and former minister Binoy Viswam told The Telegraph he had filed the petition with the court registry on Saturday, and no date had yet been set for the hearing.

He said he had decided to approach the apex court because the central government had declined offers of humanitarian assistance from overseas. Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan too has said the Centre should allow foreign assistance for his state.

"This is not the time to play politics over humanitarian assistance," Viswam said. "My point is not just about the Rs 700 crore that the United Arab Emirates is said to have offered. It's about every bit of aid - whether promised by Pakistan, Bangladesh or any other country - reaching Kerala's suffering people without any strings attached."

The Centre had on Wednesday ruled out foreign flood aid for Kerala citing a December 2004 decision by the then Manmohan Singh government, although the National Disaster Management Plan 2016 allows the government to accept such help.

Manmohan had decided after the tsunami that as a growing economic power, India would not accept foreign aid but bureaucrats from that era have asserted that the embargo applied only to foreign participation in relief operations and not to assistance towards long-term rehab.

"I've been told there were several instances when foreign help was accepted in times of calamities (after 2004)," Viswam, a CPI national secretary, said.

He recalled that even Prime Minister Narendra Modi had tweeted his appreciation of the UAE's relief offer to Kerala.

"A big thanks to @hhshkmohd (His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE) for his gracious offer to support people of Kerala during this difficult time," Modi had tweeted on August 18.

Viswam said: "This is not the time to take actions based on (political) differences. We are one nation and need to help each other, especially in times of distress."

He said his petition argued that "the Centre's decision violates Articles 14 (equality) and 21 (life and liberty) of the Constitution".

The United Nations, the UAE, Japan, Thailand, Qatar and Pakistan have all offered aid. The Centre's rejection of the offers from the UAE and Qatar, in particular, has touched a raw nerve among Malayalis, who make up more than 80 per cent of the Indian expatriates in the Gulf.

Over 370 people died in the floods and 13 lakh were displaced. Thousands of homes have been left unliveable.

While the Centre has provided Rs 600 crore as interim relief, a preliminary assessment has estimated the losses at around Rs 20,000 crore.