Issues

• There are significant gaps in preparedness on various aspects of risk management, particularly for catastrophic disasters like major earthquakes and floods.
  
  
  • Though all of India’s states have departments of disaster management or relief and rehabilitation, they are still poorly prepared to lend support in times of disasters, according to the UN Development Programme (UNDP).
  • In a number of recent disasters, 2010 mudslides in Leh, Sikkim earthquake in 2011 and the Uttarakhand floods of 2013, the level of preparedness was inadequate, leading to high levels of mortality and displacement of people.
• Facilities such as emergency operations centres, emergency communications, and search and rescue teams are being made available, but these systems and facilities need to be strengthened.
• In India Disaster management is yet to be seen as an essential part of good governance and integral to development planning.
• The preparedness at various levels are not people-oriented.
• India’s capacity to manage disaster risk is challenged by its size and huge population. The country is likely to have the greatest exposure of any nation in the world to extreme weather and natural disasters by 2030.
• The northeast region is most at risk from earthquakes and lacks seismically secure infrastructure and buildings. It is also vulnerable to landslides, floods, and erosion.
• Flooding on the country’s plains is a regular occurrence, and although communities are resilient, the intensity of floods has reduced their capacity to adapt.
• The local adaptation efforts driven solely by communities are no longer sufficient and additional, scientifically planned adaptation is needed, which will require government support.
• The division of responsibilities under the Disaster Management Act is not very clear, resulting in its poor implementation. There also exists an overlap between the implementing agencies
• Intense public and media scrutiny after disasters automatically leads to a higher priority being given to response, rather than risk reduction.
• Furthermore, where risk-reduction activities are described, State Disaster Management Plans (SDMPs) does not institutionalise accountability mechanisms to ensure that departments follow these considerations in their own planning.
  
  
  • As a result, risk-reduction activities are driven by schemes and external projects, rather than by guidelines in SDMPs.
• Because risk-reduction needs are locations specific, this gap is an opportunity for stronger, locally led risk-reduction planning by Strengthening disaster risk management in India

Suggestions

• A clearer demarcation of national and state-level responsibilities is needed, especially regarding who is responsible for risk-reduction activities.
• It is vital for state disaster management authorities to focus on the continued capacity-building of district disaster management authorities and CSOs that are responsible for managing disaster risk.
  
  
  • Capacity-building should support the planning and implementation of actions across the full disaster management cycle.
• There is a need to revise the SDMPs to include a much greater emphasis on risk reduction, rather than just preparedness and response.
• Existing rules and regulations that impede the inclusion of measures for risk reduction need to be amended.
• Build partnerships with and draw lessons from forerunner states such as Bihar and Gujarat on how to include risk reduction in plans more effectively.
• Accountability mechanisms need to be specified. This will ensure that departments follow disaster risk-reduction considerations in their own development planning.
• There is an urgent need to put the National Disaster Mitigation Fund and state disaster management funds into operation. States such as Bihar, which are leading in this regard, should share lessons on how to realise this at the state level.
• States should have decision-making power regarding whether state disaster management authorities control funds for risk reduction, or whether these are distributed to government departments.
• Public-private partnerships should be looked at more seriously as alternative modes of financing. Models such as the Surat Climate Change Trust, a collaboration between the private sector and the urban local body in Surat, Gujarat, should be studied and, if suitable, replicated.
• Risk-transfer mechanisms and insurance should be scaled up to support risk reduction.
• States should include downscaled climate projections into SDMPs, so that future and evolving risks can be taken into account.
• Using data that are already being uploaded onto platforms such as the Open Government Data Platform can help to synthesise a clearer understanding of vulnerability.
• There is a need to expand capacity-building activities on disaster management within departments, so that they include all stages of the disaster cycle, rather than the current emphasis on emergency response.
• It is important to ensure the participation of nodal officials from all key state government departments while revising SDMPs; working with technical institutions and NGOs to train nodal officials is also useful.
• The needs of women and other marginalised groups must be considered across all types of disaster risk management activity, rather than only response and relief activities, as is currently the case.
• Publicly available census data on sex, age and disability need to be included in vulnerability analyses.
• Clearer guidelines need to be issued for the genuine participation of vulnerable communities in processes to develop district disaster management plans.
• Officials from state disaster management authorities should be trained in gender-responsive budgeting and gender mainstreaming.
• Collaboration with state and central scientific institutions would help state disaster management authorities to track changing risk and risk of losses through modelling, rather than only measuring disaster impacts.
• The National Disaster Management Authority should prepare guidelines and/ or a framework to support subnational governments in aligning with the Sendai Framework.

Way Forward

• Disasters are no longer to be considered as occurrences that are to be managed through emergency response services. So, there is a need to foster a culture of prevention and identification of the key issues to be addressed especially in the development process.
• The path ahead for managing disasters is to bring in a people-centered development strategy.
• Strategies for disaster management should be accompanied by strong political will, keenness, and commitment on the part of all concerned actors involved in the exercise.
• Educating people in Disaster Risk Reduction is the need of the hour and it can be done through decentralised planning, implementation and monitoring and control.
• The major strategies which should get prominence are institutionalising national systems and capacities, strengthening governance mechanisms at local level, building community resilience, reducing the vulnerabilities of the communities at risk and public private people partnerships etc.
• Disaster Management has to embark upon a strategy aimed at holistic human development integrating the sustainable development goals, policies and practices that harness people’s strengths instead of vulnerabilities.