When Tamil Nadu was battling with heavy rain, chief minister MK Stalin was in Delhi to attend the meeting of the INDIA bloc, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Friday in a dig at Stalin after Stalin alleged that IMD failed to issue timely warnings about the extreme rainfall that killed 31 people. IMD made the forecast on December 12 itself, the finance minister said.

Sitharaman said the Regional Meteorological Centre, Chennai has ultra-modern equipment including three dopplers and made their forecast on December 12 itself that there would be heavy rainfall in the four districts – Tenkasi, Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli and Tuticorin on December 17.

In a press conference on Friday, Sitharaman said the Centre released ₹900 crore to Tamil Nadu in the current financial year to deal with the havoc caused by heavy rainfall and flooding but the government did not learn anything from 2015 Chennai floods. “We got the news on December 18. Immediately, I met home minister Amit Shah and sought measures for the four districts,” Sitharaman said adding that Tamil Nadu floods could not be declared as a national disaster as Stalin sought.

Nirmala Sitharaman said Stalin reached the affected districts four days later as he was busy in Delhi and before him personnel from the central agencies reached.

“At the beginning of this financial year (April 2023), the opening balance of Tamil Nadu’s SDRF was ₹813.15 crore. Of the total ₹900 crore allocated to TN, the first installment of ₹450 crore was already released. The second installment of ₹450 crore was also released before the cyclone. So, we have released the entire fund earmarked for this year ₹900 crore, to Tamil Nadu,” she noted.

Tsunami 2004 was not declared national disaster: Sitharaman

After the press meet, Nirmala Sitharaman took to X and said that even 2004 Tsunami was not declared a national disaster when the UPA was in power and the DMK was its partner. “There is no practice of announcing any disaster, in any state, at any time, by any government (of India) as National Disaster. Since there is a lot of interest in TN, even Tsunami of December 2004 (UPA with partner DMK) was not declared as National Disaster,” Sitharaman wrote.