The Finance Ministry yesterday released Rs.300 million to the Disaster Management Ministry to enable it to pay relief allowances for the flood affected people of Kolonnawa area.

Finance Minster Ravi Karunanayake said the previous plan by the government to provide relief to the flood affected people has been disrupted due to the inefficiency and negligence in the part of relevant officials on one hand, and on the other hand due to the officials confining themselves to government circulars.

He reiterated that this tragic situation should be changed with immediate effect and, without abiding by Circulars, officials should take action in order to attend to the needs of the affected.

The minister stressed this point during the district development committee meeting held at the Colombo District Secretariat in Narahenpita 16 June.

It was revealed during the district development committee meeting that preparation had been made to pay Rs.10, 000 to each affected family but payment of these allowances has been delayed due to practical reasons.  Colombo District Secretary Sunil Kannangara told the meeting that 24,518 families in the area have been affected by the recent floods.

At this juncture, Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake said that he will take immediate action to release necessary funds to the Disaster Management Ministry from yesterday afternoon.

He also reiterated that priority should be given to provide necessary relief to affected residents in the area and insisted that there is no difficulty in providing required funds.  If Rs.10, 000 is not sufficient for these families to restart life, the amount could be reasonably increased, pointed out Minister Karunanayake.

At this moment, the Colombo District Secretary said that paying of relief allowances had caused disputes. He said people who are not permanent residents, tenants and unauthorised inhabitants have also claimed relief allowances. Answering to the district secretary, Minister Karunanayake said that people should not be discriminated by their residential status when they are in a peril therefore all affected families should be paid the Rs.10, 000 allowance immediately regardless of their residential status.

In addition, the Minister instructed the respective authorities to pay the Rs.10, 000 allowances to every affected family before next Saturday (18 June).

Ministers Patali Champika Ranawake and Susil Premajayantha and MPs Bandula Gunawardana, Dinesh Gunawardana, Gamini Lokuge, Mujibar Rahuman and S.M. Marikkar as well as several government officials also participated in the discussion. 

DMC and Meteorological Department arrive on Twitter

By ShiranIllanperuma

The Disaster Management Centre (DMC) and the Department of Meteorology launched Twitter profiles over the last two days in a bid to engage with citizens more closely and spread awareness on the threat of natural disasters.

DMC Assistant Director PradeepKodippili told Daily FT that the move was a strategic way to“enhance awareness raising capacity and engage with communities”.

“We hope to use social media platforms to disseminate early warnings for natural disasters and spread awareness of our day-to-day activities. We also hope to use this platform to obtain suggestions from the community,” he elaborated

The move comes in the wake of the landslide in Aranayake that occurred last month,which has been dubbed as the worst natural disaster that Sri Lanka has seen in over a decade. The disaster left hundreds dead and thousands displaced.

While citizens and civil society organisationsresponded by taking to social media to disseminate information on the situation on the ground, a robust social media presence on the part of public institutions was notably absent.

Said Kodippili: “We had other early warning systems in place but we didn’t engage much with social media. Given how connected the youth are online, we feel that a greater emphasison social media will help us get the youth in our hands to disseminate warnings to their communities in times of crisis”.

The DMC’s Twitter account is currently being run by existing staff members, however Kodippili indicated that discussions were underway to assign new staffmembers to solely handle all social media responsibilities round-the-clock.

Representatives from the Department of Meteorology were unavailable for comment. The DMC’s Twitter handle is @dmc_lk while the Department of Meteorology’s handle is @MeteoLK.