Disaster Management

In the recent decades, India is witnessing an explosive growth rate in urbanisation and its associated vulnerability to disasters. Disaster management in India has district as the basic unit, while city as a complex system requires different strategies. The city civic authorities need to explore mechanisms to increase their resource allocations for disaster management as well as to bring in the enhanced skills of both institutions and community.

Odisha, in spite of a poor public health system, did well in managing the pandemic in the initial month. This is on account of three reasons. It drew from its now globally recognised swift disaster preparedness and management aimed at zero casualty. It adopted a proactive, as against reactive, course, which in itself is a difficult proposition in such an uncertain and dynamic scenario. It took lessons from success stories and challenges based on happenings elsewhere.

In May 2018, multiple extreme weather events claimed scores of lives, damaged property and brought public life to a standstill in parts of India. In the aftermath of these events, a blame game ensued with some assigning responsibility to scientific and state agencies, and others calling for more research and accurate weather forecasts. It is important to recognise the uncertainties in climate science and embrace them in order to channel resources appropriately, attribute causality, build public trust, and improve policy effectiveness.

The recent floods in Kashmir and Uttarakhand are an eye-opener—short term preventive measures like embankments should be replaced by strengthening of the institutional mechanism and improvement in forecasting and information disseminating systems.