Election Commission stalls heavy pay outs from Chief Minister’s Relief Fund

Thiruvananthapuram: The Oommen Chandy government is readying for another fight with the Election Commission of India after the one over drinking water supply in tankers.

This time, it is the backlog and fresh sanctions of assistance from the Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund. The Commission has stalled heavy pay outs from the Fund in the last days of the government.

The government had sanctioned as much as Rs. 90 crores in the first two months of this year and an additional Rs. 52.50 crores in the first three days of March from the Fund. When election was declared on March 4, Rs. 44.54 crore was pending disbursal to a whopping 40000 persons.

The average monthly sanctions from the Relief Fund between 2011 and 2015 was a little over Rs. 10 crore. This jumped to around Rs. 50 crores in January 2016. In February, Rs. 40 crore was sanctioned. This catapulted to nearly Rs. 18 crore per day in March.

According to official figures the total assistance that has been sanctioned since 2011 is Rs. 798 crore.  Now, the highest amount is pending payment in Thiruvananthapuram district—Rs. 13 crore to 12048 beneficiaries.

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy wrote to the Commission on March 9 pointing out that the sums pending disbursal was sanctioned before the announcement of the elections (before the code of conduct for the elections came into force).  He maintained that the Commission should allow the disbursements on compassionate grounds as it was essential for treatment of people suffering from various diseases. However, the Commission has not granted clearance till now.