A file picture of a house at Maharaja in Raiganj block flattened by the storm

Raiganj, July 20: The district administration has received less than a third of funds required to repair and rebuild houses damaged in a storm, three months after half a dozen ministers, the governor, and disaster management officials visited the affected sites.

The administration had demanded Rs 103 crore, against which they received Rs 30 crore from the state government two weeks ago.

The devastating cyclone-like storm on April 13 had claimed 42 lives in Raiganj, Karandighi, Goalpokhor and Hemtabad blocks of North Dinajpur district.

It had flattened 93,621 houses, and damaged another 96,710 partially. The storm had also destroyed standing crops on 15,365 hectares.

“We are in a fix. We do not know how we shall disburse the money among the affected villagers,” said Sunil Dandapat, the district magistrate.

According to him, the administration had demanded Rs 103 crore. But the state government has sent only Rs 30 crore.

Dandapat said with the amount they have received, it was difficult to give the block development officers (BDOs) any guidelines on how to distribute it among the villagers .

Dandapat said he has asked the BDOs of the nine affected blocks to discuss the matter with the panchayat samities concerned and disburse the funds on a priority basis.

“We are not sure when the rest of the money will reach us. We have made a fresh appeal to the government to send us the balance amount at the earliest,” he said.

A team of six ministers from north Bengal — Srikumar Mukherjee, Biswanath Chowdhury, Narayan Biswas, Paresh Adhikari, Murtaza Hussain and Anarul Haque — had visited the affected blocks following the storm and supervised the relief and rescue operations.

Governor M.K. Narayanan had also visited the storm-hit areas on April 27. Later, disaster management officials from Delhi had toured the affected blocks.

Asked about the problems of disbursal, none of the BDOs were willing to talk. The relief karmadhaksha of Karandighi panchayat samiti Karuna Dasgupta, however, admitted that they were facing “some problems”. But the official said she expected the remaining amount to reach the district headquarters soon.