Subsidies can be used more flexibly

March 8, 2013

Gov't to expand scope of use for disaster recovery subsidies

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130308p2a00m0na010000c.html

The national government has expanded the scope of use for subsidies that it extends to local governments hit by the March 2011 triple disasters to help with their recovery efforts.

The decision was made at a joint meeting of the Reconstruction Promotion Committee and the Nuclear Disaster Countermeasures Headquarters on March 7 in response to requests by disaster-hit local bodies.

"We must speed up recovery efforts and ensure that residents of the disaster-hit areas will enter the next winter, which is the third since the disasters, with some hope. We'd like to do our utmost to make sure that residents of disaster regions will restore their livelihoods," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who heads both organizations, told the meeting.

The disaster recovery subsidy system was established based on the "Act for Special Zone for Reconstruction" that the Diet passed in December 2011. The central government has so far provided a total of about 1.37 trillion yen in reconstruction subsidies to affected local bodies on four occasions since March 2012.

However, local governments in disaster-hit regions have expressed dissatisfaction with the limitation on the scope of their use.

In response, the national government decided at the meeting to enforce the current system in a flexible manner from the fifth provision of such subsidies on March 8 to expand the scope of the subsidies' use.

Specifically, the national government has opened the way for municipalities to spend reconstruction subsidies to build parks in areas vacated after residents are collectively relocated to safer areas as well as to establish disaster-prevention centers. Moreover, it now allows local bodies to use such subsidies for surveys to restore sand beaches devastated by powerful tsunami generated by the March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and build bicycle parking lots in front of railway stations, to help them redevelop the areas.

At the same meeting, the government approved a road map toward building 19,260 public housing units for disaster victims who cannot rebuild their houses on their own in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures by fiscal 2015. By area, 5,094 housing units will be built in Iwate Prefecture, 11,248 in Miyagi Prefecture and 2,918 in Fukushima Prefecture. Additionally, 8,514 housing lots will be developed in the three prefectures for private houses.

Municipalities in disaster regions have drawn up their own plans to build restoration houses. From now on, the Reconstruction Agency will examine whether each municipality has made progress with its construction of restoration houses according to the road map.

The national government will also help facilitate the acquisition of land lots for public disaster restoration housing and secure experts and construction materials.

The government has also compiled a plan to help residents of areas affected by the Fukushima nuclear disaster return to their homes at an early date and settle down in other areas. It is expected to work out road maps in some areas, where residents will likely be able to return within a few years, by this coming summer.