Shillong: The Union Ministry of Home Affairs has launched a ‘Scheme for Expansion and Modernisation of Fire Services in the States’ from the earmarked allocation of preparedness and capacity building funding window under the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) for strengthening fire services with a total outlay of Rs 5,000 crore.
Of the total amount, Rs 500 crore has been kept for incentivising the states for legal and infrastructure-based reforms. A letter in this regard has been sent to the chief secretaries and heads of fire services in all states.
For seeking funds for the projects/proposals under the scheme, the state governments concerned will have to contribute 25% (except for the North-Eastern and Himalayan (NEH) states, which will contribute 10%) of the total cost of such projects/proposals from their budgetary resources.
Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah announced the scheme while chairing a meeting with Ministers of Disaster Management of the states/union territories in New Delhi last month.
Several key initiatives are being taken to ensure ‘zero death’ and minimum loss of property during disasters by strengthening the disaster risk reduction system in India to make it disaster resilient.
The scheme finds its origin in the recommendation of the Fifteenth Finance Commission that allows an allocation of 12.5% of each of the NDRF and State Disaster Response Fund.
Out of the total NDRF corpus, Rs 5,000 crore was earmarked for priority ‘Expanding and Modernisation of Fire Services’.
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