January 12, 2005

THE QUESTION OF DISASTER MANAGEMENT
CENTRE HAS FINALLY AWAKENED, BUT WE NEED MUCH MORE

Tsunami disaster and subsequent criticism of the Centre in mishandling its aftermath along with its inaction on various counts including lack of timely preventive measures has finally awakened the Government of India from its Kumbhakarni sleep. Now it says that government will constitute a Disaster Management Authority and introduce a bill in the coming budget to give the country a legislative framework that may enable the country to deal with natural disasters. However, the country needs much more in the backdrop where almost two-third of the districts of the country are disaster prone.

Lack of concern about disasters and its proper management lies in the fact that even Ministers' and Secretaries' of various departments are found recently to be ignorant of many facts. For example, our Union Home Minister Shivaraj Patil said that after the Bhuj earthquake (2001) a National Committee on Disaster Management had been formed and in the light of its recommendations a cabinet note on setting up an Authority and a draft Bill is ready. However, it is incorrect in the sense that the Ministry of Agriculture had sponsored a study for legislative frameworks are early as l998 or 1999. The study was complete by June 2000 and was lying with the Ministry nobody knowing about it.

The study done by Prof. S S Singh and Sanjay Pratap of IIPA, had recommended many things that included the proposals for an authority and a Draft Modal Bill for legislative framework. At that time National Centre for Disaster Management was in IIPA. Since then much water has flowed down the Yamuna. Now this Centre has become National Institute of Disaster Management and has been transferred from Ministry of Agriculture to the Ministry of Home Affairs.

If the government wants only the two things to do - the establishment of National Authority on Disaster Management and introduction of a Bill - then it is going to do only cosmetic things and that too to save its skin.

The next example is more disturbing, because the quarrel between the state governments and the Union. One of our Union Minister, Kapil Sibal was quoted to have said that disaster management comes under state list, so main responsibility of managing it is theirs. The question is when even countries are not competent enough to tackle disaster of such magnitude, how can a state do it? There can be cited numerous examples of unawareness and confusion in the Government machinery at the top regarding disaster management and lack of willingness to do something concrete as preventive measures. It has surfaced after tsunami disaster.

So present system of disaster management of our country is to be totally restructured after making the disaster management a part of concurrent list, that will need a constitutional amendment. And, the announced measures are clearly falling short of the requirement.

It's irony that the country that has two third of the districts as disaster prone has not any comprehensive policy of disaster management. Everything is ad hoc till date. However, the need for legislative support in creating specialised institutional base with clear-cut programmes, trained manpower and technical knowhow had been felt as early as in 1992 in the regional seminar which was conducted as a part of 'Regional Study of Disaster Mitigation.' The nineties was International Decade of Natural Disaster Reduction, and the study sponsored by Ministry of Agriculture and done by NCDM, was its part.

What is proposed now falls short of the need due to very faulty definition of the Natural disaster, that includes catastrophe like earthquake, flood, landslide, hurricanes etc but excludes atmospheric disasters which arise from resource needs like oxygen, cooling, warmth etc despite the fact that resource needs affect the weather layer of atmosphere. If we go deep inside the causes of natural disasters we find there atmospheric disasters due to resource needs. Some of the atmospheric disasters are like natural disasters for example, heatwaves, cold spells, lightning or thunderstorm, tornados, tropical cyclones, snowfalls, highwinds, floods, landslide or even fog. Therefore, if we are to tackle it in an institutional and legal framework, we have to do more than cosmetic steps as it is being tried to do within few days after sleeping over the proposal for years.

Even the creation of the universe is the result of a disaster, that is big bang, so disasters are many times useful for creation. So we should view it in right perspective. We should worry for only the effects, not the incidents itself because they are natural, of such incidents on mankind and man-made infrastructure that we have built without taking consideration of the natural phenomenon that are bound to happen. So we need more comprehensive legislative and institutional framework that can take account of our follies of ignoring the natural phenomenon themselves. At this count, the proposals fall short, because it deal only the management part after a disaster but not before it happens, with only few exceptions as preventive measures. So, the whole plan of creating man made infrastructures and managing them also need a fresh look, for all the stages of disasters before and after they occur.

For natural disaster management, mitigation, or to ensure safety of the population and to reduce damage to man-made and natural resources there is a need for scientific substantiation of the relevant plans, programmes and activities; drafting legislations, methodological documents, research and creation of databases for disaster mitigation, forecasting, preventing and compensation of all types of damages and unforeseen effects on the basis of the previous experiences and assessing the consequences; vertical and horizontal coordination among the States , the Centre , people and the society at different levels of interaction.

Further, the need for these essential steps arise because in the absence of technical know how, interest in implementing the known knowledge, financial resources and shortage of data. There is a problem in implementing appropriate disaster management plans and mitigation policies. Therefore, we have to enable the agencies with the responsibilities of disaster management to deal with wide range of policy, planning, organizational, operational and other matters.

The present system of natural disaster management is proved to be incapable of handling crises. We need an overhauling of this system in the short term and a comprehensive policy in long term including a permanent authority and all encompassing legal framework. (EOM)