Indian Social Club to collect Kerala aid for 3 months

Muscat: The Indian Social Club (ISC) will be collecting relief funds for the Kerala flood victims for the next three months. ISC is the only licenced authority in the Sultanate that is allowed to collect aid in the wake of the disaster.
The Ministry of Social Development has been very gracious and prompt in responding to the requests to send relief to Kerala.
“We are constrained in Oman, as such a transfer of funds to India can only be done if the Ministry of Social Development grants permission. Once the ministry reopened after the Eid holidays, it was gracious enough to approve it immediately,” said Dr Satish Nambiar, Chairman of ISC.
Those who wish to contribute can deposit money in the Indian Social Club Kerala Relief Fund (account number: 0333005572320088 at Bank Muscat). “We request all those who have a kind heart and feel for those who are affected in Kerala to donate generously,” he said. He also said that only monetary support will be accepted and no materials such as food, clothing drugs, etc. will be accepted.
This comes as the Kerala government has asked people not to send relief material directly unless they have a direct contact who can make sure the distribution can happen.
Cash needed
“We are not collecting clothes, food and drugs. We have been told by the chief minister that none of that is required. Only cash is required,” he said.
No concrete decision has been made yet over how the funds will be distributed; they may either be given to the chief minister’s disaster relief fund or used to adopt a village as was done in the past.
“Our target is INR5 crore, which is approximately OMR275,000. We have not taken a decision over whether we are going to deposit the money into the chief minister’s disaster relief fund or identify villages and adopt them. If we go with the latter, we will have to take permission from the Kerala government,” he said, adding, “We have helped during the Gujarat earthquake, Bihar flooding, tsunami in Chennai and Uttarakhand cloud burst. We managed to collect a substantial sum.