Mains 2016: Disaster management Act in India – Salient Features and Issues

 Disaster management Act in India

Some basic facts

• From 2002 to 2013, India was among the five countries most frequently hit by natural disasters.
• These included the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004, which caused around 11,000 deaths and affected 2.79 million people in India, and the 2013 floods in Uttarakhand, which caused 5,748 deaths and affected 4,200 villages.
• Before this, India’s major disasters included Cyclone Paradip in 1999, which caused around 10,000 deaths.
• According to the World Risk Index 2014, India is in the top half of all countries at risk from natural hazards.
• India has suffered from many disasters in its recent history too, both natural and climate related, and these continue to cause devastation.
• In November 2015, floods in the southern city of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, killed over 370 people and damaged crops worth US$190 m.
• And in May 2016, record temperatures of 51°C hit Phalodi, Rajasthan, during a heat wave that affected much of northern India.

Disaster management act, 2005:-

• Since the enactment of the disaster management act in 2005, it has enacted a new multidisciplinary focus on disaster prevention and risk reduction and a move away from a relief-centric regime.
  • The institutional framework under the Act mandated the creation of the National Disaster Management Authority and state disaster management authorities as the bodies responsible for disaster preparedness and risk reduction at the respective levels.
  • The Disaster Management Division of the ministry of Home Affairs’ retained responsibility for steering the national
  disaster response overall.
  • And, it mandated the concerned Ministries and Departments to draw up their own plans in accordance with the National Plan.
  • The Act further contains the provisions for financial mechanisms such as the creation of funds for the response, National Disaster Mitigation Fund and similar funds at the state and district levels.

Where disaster management act has been lacking

• The states have not able to implement the concerned plans.
  • NDMA has failed the states to prepare for the disaster they are vulnerable to.
  • Regarding floods, NDMA has no system in place for the early warnings in the vulnerable areas like Uttrakhand.
  • There is alack of coordination between the government agencies and ministries responsible for disaster management like the ministry of earth sciences, state governments,and NDMA.
  • NDMA has failed in performing many important functions like recommending provision of funds for mitigation, as well as relief in repayment of loans or grant of fresh ones.

NDMA’s project management capacity has been found deficient. NDMA has not been able to complete many major projects so far.

National disaster management plan, 2016

Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi recently released the National Disaster Management Plan (NDMP), as a first ever national plan prepared in the country.

Salient features

• The NDMP incorporates substantively the approach mentioned in the Sendai Framework.
  • The plan covers all phases of disaster management: prevention, mitigation, response and recovery.
  • It provides for horizontal and vertical integration among all the agencies and departments of the Government.
  • The plan has assigned roles and responsibilities of all levels of Government right up to Panchayat and Urban Local body level in a matrix format.
  • As the plan is following the regional approach, it will be beneficial not only for disaster management but also for
  development planning.
  • It also identifies major activities such as early warning, information dissemination, medical
  care, fuel, transportation, search and rescue, evacuation, etc. to serve as a checklist for agencies responding to a disaster.
  • The plan emphasizes on preparing communities to cope with disasters, so it stresses on a greater need for Information, Education, and Communication activities.

Problems with the Disaster Management Plan, 2016

• The plan has been too general in its identification of the activities to be undertaken by the central and states governments for disaster risk mitigation, preparedness, response, recovery, reconstruction, and governance.
  • The plan has not provided any time frame for undertaking these activities.
  • There is not mention of the framework for monitoring and evaluation of the plan.
  • The funding mechanism is also not clear about the project inneed of funds.
  • Activities that the plan has included are not new. Same activities were listed in the previous plans too that too with the time-frame for implementation.
  • Although the plan is said to be aligned with Sendai framework, but there are no goals or targets, unlike Sendai framework.

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