Context: Recently,the Central government has laid out the modalities for contributions and grants from any person or institution to the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF), for the first time after 15 years of its establishment.
Key Points

• Contributions to the NDRF have been allowed through any of the modes like physical instruments, Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS)/National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT)/ Unified Payments Interface (UPI and the final mode of contribution is through Bharatkosh portal.
• These contributions have been allowed as per Section 46(1)(b) of the Disaster Management (DM) Act, 2005.
• The contributions to the NDRF by any individual or institution have been allowed nearly 15 years after it was set up.

About the NDRF

• The NDRF is a fund constituted under Section 46 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005.
• It supplements the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) of a state in case of a disaster of severe nature, provided adequate funds are not available in the SDRF.
• Natural calamities of cyclone, drought, earthquake, fire, flood, tsunami, hailstorm, landslide, avalanche, cloud burst and pest attack considered to be of severe nature by the GOI.
• The NDRF was formed by merging the erstwhile National Calamity Contingency Fund (NCCF) with the NDRF.
• It is a fund managed by the Central Government for meeting the expenses for emergency response, relief and rehabilitation due to any threatening disaster situation or disaster.
• NDRF amount can be spent only towards meeting the expenses for emergency response, relief and rehabilitation.
• It is used only for providing immediate relief.
• It is not used for providing compensation for crop loss, etc.
• It is also not used for measures to mitigate the risk or impact of disasters, for which another fund, the National Disaster Mitigation Fund has been constituted.
• The fund is in the “Public Accounts” of the GOI under the “reserve funds not bearing interest”.
• It is audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG).