New Delhi, Aug 31: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Sunday constituted Inter-Ministerial Central Teams (IMCTs), each for Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, to assess the damage caused by heavy rainfall, floods, flash floods, cloudbursts, and landslides.
An official spokesman said that the IMCTs were constituted on the directions of Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation, Amit Shah.
These IMCT would make on-the-spot assessment of the situation and relief works carried out by the state and union territory governments.
These central teams would visit early next week the flood and landslide-affected districts of J&K, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, which have been severely affected by heavy to extremely heavy rainfall and incidents of flash flood, cloudburst, and landslides, during the current monsoon season.
An IMCT and a Multi-Sectoral Team have already visited Himachal Pradesh.
The central teams are led by a senior officer of the level of Joint Secretary in MHA and NDMA and will have senior officers from the Ministries and Departments of Expenditure, Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Jal Shakti, Power, Road Transport and Highways, and Rural Development.
The MHA is in touch with senior officers of these states and union territories and has extended all necessary logistic assistance by deployment of the requisite number of teams of NDRF, Army, and Air Force helicopters, who are helping them in search and rescue and restoration of essential services.
As per the decision taken by the Union Home Minister Amit Shah, in August 2019, the MHA constitutes IMCTs immediately in the aftermath of a severe disaster for on-spot assessment of the damage, without waiting for their memorandum.
After the assessment of damage is done by the IMCT, the Centre provides additional financial assistance to states and UTs from NDRF, as per the established procedure.
During the financial year 2025-26, the Centre released Rs 10,498.80 crore to 24 states in SDRF to enable the disaster affected states to provide relief assistance to the affected people immediately and Rs 1988.91 crore from NDRF to 12 states, Rs 3274.90 crore from the State Disaster Mitigation Fund (SDMF) to 20 states, and Rs 372.09 crore from National Disaster Mitigation Fund (NDMF) to nine states.
The official spokesman said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Centre stands shoulder to shoulder with the states affected by natural calamities in mitigating the hardship faced by the people.
