NEW DELHI: Amid

opposition parties

demanding enhanced central

assistance

for Kerala to help rebuild and rehabilitate

Wayanad

, govt sources said the state was already sitting on a corpus of Rs 540 crore in

disaster funds

— Rs 395 crore balance in its disaster response fund and Rs 145 crore released by

Centre

on July 31, a day after the landslides.
Sources said in the last five years, Kerala has received Rs 2,225 crore in the state disaster response fund (SDRF), which includes Rs 1,200 crore as Centre’s share and Rs 450 crore provided by it towards disaster mitigation.

Several states, including Kerala, Centre said, have been found lax in initiating disaster

mitigation

projects that could prevent major loss of lives and properties during natural calamities.
A large corpus of the disaster funds remains unused every year, which are then carried forward in the next year since allocation for disaster

relief

and rescue is a non-lapsable fund. Congress’ Rahul Gandhi had Friday demanded that PM Modi, after his survey of Wayanad, declare it a ‘national disaster’.
Centre has already committed over Rs 20,550 crore as its share in the total disaster relief funds of Rs 26,842 crore for this year. In the current financial year, the highest Rs 3,454 crore has been released to Karnataka for drought relief, sources said.