No drought of funds in PM's relief programe

No drought of funds in PM's relief programe
VRINDA GOPINATH

NEW DELHI, FEB 14: There is a virtual avalanche of cheques, money orders and mail from all corners of the country into the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund office (PMNRLF) in South Block.

Disbursement of relief funds is a nine-to-five job in the quiet, air-conditioned confines of the permanent NRLF section in the PMO, which renders monetary assistance to victims of natural calamities as well as riots and accidents and to the poor (recommended by MPs) to partially defray the cost of expensive medical treatment.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's fund-raising abilities cause envy among the causerati. His first public appeal in 1998 soon after he took over saw the corpus of the NRLF swell from Rs 100 crore to Rs 130 crore in a couple of weeks. The PM's Kargil War relief appeal raised Rs 500 crore for the National Defence Fund while the Orissa super-cyclone relief fund raised Rs 110 crore for the NRLF. He is already getting close to his target of Rs 200 crore for the Gujarat quake relief with having collected more than Rs 77 crore in 10 days.

In the last few days, the post section in the PMO has been receiving almost 5000 cheques everyday which have been pouring in from every corner of the country.

At least three to four sacks of cheques wait to be enlisted before they are sent up to the NRLF section for data entry, issuing reciepts and fund disbursement. Cheques and money orders have been pouring in from the PM's house, the collection desk in the front office in the PMO, from the newly-created post box number for credit card transactions created at the PM's office and from MPs who personally deliver their collections. For instance, Delhi BJP MPs Madanlal Khurana and Vijay Goel have dumped almost three sacks of cheques from their collection drive in the Capital totalling Rs 1 crore and Rs 2 crore respectively.

The 14-member staff at the Fund section have been divided into two groups -- one looks after the routine recommendations for medical assistance and carrying out prior relief work; the other half has been snowed under the Gujarat quake relief work, assisted by two officials from designated banks. Their job is to make computer data entry of every single donor with contributions that range from Rs 100 to Rs 10 crore, issue a personal receipt of acknowledgement, deposit the cheques in banks, maintain audit accounts, and then, the most crucial of tasks, disburse funds to the Chief Secretary of the affected state and prod the latter for the receipt of the utilisation certificate.

Says a harried official in the NRLF, ``Our section essentially gives compensation of a minimum of Rs 50,000 to the next of kin in a calamity situation. It takes about three months for the funds to be fully tabulated, then another three months to organise the disbursement. Of course, state governments are extremely lethargic about furnishing their utilisation certificates.'' For instance, even a-year-and-a-half later, only Rs 70 crore of the entire Rs 110 crore collected for the Orissa cyclone relief under the NRLF has been distributed.

But the official beams at the public response to the PM's appeal for funds. ``People feel most secure donating to the PM's relief fund as they get receipts of acknowledgement from the Prime Minister's Office itself. It is something every donor would love to possess.''