Claims to be settled for flood victims: Arun Jaitley

659 persons were also given loans totaling Rs 9.02 crore under the Prime Minister’s Mudra Yojana to help fix severely affected or destroyed machinery and stocks.

Speaking at a function organised by the State Level Bankers’ Committee (SLBC) of the state, for distribution of loans and insurance compensation for the flood-hit, the minister said that such assistance can only be a temporary and transient measure. “There are about 2,600 branches in these four districts, which have been significantly impacted, and nearly on a mission mode, loan applications for soft loans have to be considered”, he said.

It may be noted, earlier Tamil Nadu Government submitted a Memorandum to sanction around Rs 8,440 crore to take up rehabilitation work, besides it also asked the Urban Ministry to release Rs 5,000 crore to construct new houses for the people who were staying on the banks of River Coovum and Adyar river. “The eventual target is every legitimate claimant should be entertained”. General insurance companies have so far received over 11,000 claims and 2,000 have been settled. About 2,000 of these have already been settled. “Today morning we had a meeting with all the insurance companies i.e. LIC and GIC companies, 27 public sector banks, national housing banks and 17 private sector banks, so that in addition to the aid what the Central government and the state government is giving, how these financial institution can help the people”, Jaitley said after meeting Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa at Secretariat here. Banks have a sufficient amount of fiscal place for that and Delhi will constantly review the progress.

Jaitley, too, confirmed that his visit had been “principally to assess the recent natural calamity”, while refusing to take any questions on the stalled GST legislation that seeks to bring all goods and services under a uniform tax regime. “So, we have set high targets for the banks today”, he said.

Distributing loans and financial assistance to the affected in Chennai, Jaitley said his visit has come to the city when it was facing “challenging times”.

The MUDRA scheme, under which loans of Rs. 50,000, Rs. 5 lakh and Rs. 10 lakh were given, would be used to help families in the four flood-affected districts, Mr. Jaitley said.