What are the preventive steps taken by Indian government for disaster management?
Answers
In 2005 government of India passed the Disaster management act to deal with these disasters. There are three apex bodies at the national level: NDMA (National Disaster Management Authority), NDRF (National Disaster Response Force) and NIDM ( National Institute of Disaster Management).
NDMA issued various guidelines, plans and documents with pro active approach to minimise the impacts of the disasters. According to DM act 2005 there should be State Disaster Management Authorities in every State and District Disaster Management Authority in every district. Several states are currently having functional SDMAs and DDMAs. State level and district level disaster management plans are there in place. These measures are taken at policy level. But unfortunately these are not very much effective on ground as not implemented properly, so we have to go a long way to make things working on ground.
On the other hand, NDRF is the responsible for post disaster response activists which are doing pretty well. NDRF located strategically at 12 places across India so it can cover maximum place to respond in minimum time according to the sensitivity of zone and hazards. Now there are several State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) are in process.
Now let’s talk about things on ground:
We need different strategies to deal with all these different hazards. Government of India and State government are very well equipped to deal with hazards like cyclone. Early warning system is in place, cyclone shelters are there across the costal line and several other measures.
But we are still struggling to make us better against other hazards like fire, landslide, drought, earthquake. To make us better against these we need participation of community people who are directly dealing with these. I can give you one example from my own experience: In Himachal Pradesh, (where I was working on a disaster risk reduction project) lot of major fire incidents reported every year in the winter season. The reason behind that people keep storage of wood and dry hay to survive winter and snowfall season. Most of the house construction involves use of wood which makes them more vulnerable to fire. There are villages which are situated at the top of mountains where road access is not possible, so in case of emergency fire fighting vehicles can reach there. Even after conducting awareness programs by the government, people are not willing to keep woods and dry hay outside the houses at some common place away from the houses (there are challenges for community people too). Even after many incidents, people are hardly changing their habits towards this. So these kind of issues needs community participation to be resolved.
Same in the case of earthquakes: people are not making new constructions with earthquake resistant measures, due to corruption people are making illegal multi-storey buildings which are increasing risks. People are making houses in the zone where they should not (Kedarnath flash flood is one of the example of that)
In the case of droughts, again community participation is much needed. In Maharashtra, in last two three years, people are acknowledging the importance of rain water harvesting, watershed planning etc and they are able to minimise the impacts of droughts.
I should say, minimising the impacts of disasters is not task which is only done by government. Community participation and awareness towards disasters also much needed. Otherwise we will end up like always, things are there in documents but not on ground.