Disaster Risk Reduction
According to Dr. Manmohan Singh Hon’ble Prime Minister of India “Integration of Disaster Risk Reduction strategies into our development initiatives must necessarily involve actively the local communities. Make full use of our Panchayat Raj institutions to achieve this objective. Pay special attention to this very important aspect. Another area that perhaps needs greater attention relates to arrangements for providing funds to people so that they are able to cope with the losses they suffer due to natural disasters. The current systems, particularly at the National level, lack institutional incentives and do not promote mechanisms such as risk insurance and contingent credit facilities. The development of such ex-ante arrangements is particularly important because they typically serve as a primary source of immediate funding that would reduce human suffering, economic losses and fiscal pressures in the aftermath of natural disasters. Managing disasters is necessarily a collaborative and complex exercise, involving not only several Departments of the Government at the Centre but also State and local Governments, Civil Society Organizations, local communities and the people at large. Disaster management is an area of vital national importance to our country. As we all know, India is vulnerable to a large range of natural and man-made disasters. Events like earthquakes, floods, droughts, cyclones, landslides and industrial accidents have been a cause of great misery and suffering in our country. In recent years, climate change has posed fresh new challenges that our disaster management strategies should be able to cope with. These are in the form of the increased intensity and frequency of disasters like floods, cyclones and droughts. It is estimated that the chances of future extreme events would be much higher than what they are today because of the changes that continue to occur in our climate patterns”.
Way Forward
Nevertheless, the policy reforms undertaken by India are comprehensive and envisage specific parameters for the different phases of disaster management. The paradigm shift is a comprehensive overhaul that represents ‘double-loop learning’ as far as federal policy making is concerned. Its objective is to change the fundamental objective from distribution of relief to addressing all-phases of generic disaster management. The sum total of changes represents a complete policy overhaul in Indian disaster management. However, there is also need for sensitizing and galvakizing the people by launching outreach programmes at the grassroots level to prepare them for facing the odds. Besides, better coordination, cooperation and convergence is also called fro between the Centre and states with regard to disaster management.
