Political Diary
New
Delhi, 21 August 2018
What’s The Big Deal?
DISASTER MANAGEMENT= DISASTER
By Poonam I Kaushish
God’s Own Country Kerala
resembles a disaster zone as floods swamp the State leaving over 200 killed, 2,23,000 living in
1568 relief camps as people hanker for relief. The story resounds across States as the
deluge ravages cities, erases
villages, sluices roads, damages crops, sweeps bodies, cripples train
services, shut down airports, wrecks the economy bringing
everything to a grinding halt. Mumbai yesterday, Kochi today, Chennai
tomorrow, Kolkata, Guwahati next. Underscoring
a stark reality: Government's fiasco and failure to prepare expertise in
predicting rainfall intensity and its impact. Succinctly, disaster
management is a disaster.
Thanks to Government’s criminal
casualness ---
kaam chalao! Babudom’s choord yaar attitude, unabated construction,
insufficient
cleaning of drains, encroachments
of sprawling slums alongside rivers and streams, shoddy management of storm
water drains, dug-up
roads, no de-silting etc. Heavy
development had destroyed green spaces and mangrove forests, its natural flood
protection resulting in inadequate drainage system as no amount of man-made
storm water drains can make up for natural drains. While the severity of the
rains can be termed as an ‘act of God’, the mess, misery and damage is
certainly man-made and mostly caused by human error.
An example. Tamil Nadu has witnessed 8 severe cyclones in 13
years so one expects the national and State
disaster management teams would be hands-on to tackle the emergency. The reality:
Zilch, as disaster preparedness is non-existent. There is no clear line of communication or coordination among State
agencies involved in search and rescue operations, only families checking on
each other.
Months of flooding in 13 States have caused huge economic
losses and heaped misery on millions of people. Questionably, why is the country's
preparedness for natural disasters so poor? Why are long-term responses not
developed to what is an annual expected problem? Why aren’t adequate
arrangements made to ensure survivors don’t die of starvation, due to the
Administration’s ineptitude. Do we know the ABC of disaster management? Are we
inept or plain lazy bordering on the ke
pharak painda hai attitude?
Till date 2,000 people have been killed and more than
42 million affected -- displaced or stranded. Alas, our preparedness to
deal with calamity is as rag-tag as ever. Far from having a defence system
against elemental fury, the Central and State Governments seem to be banking on
hope that any future disaster would not be as destructive as the last. Not for
our polity implementation of basic suggestions and developing long-term
responses.
Unfortunately, in a
nation natured on short-cuts and quick-fix solutions, none knows anything about
disaster management or finding lasting solutions. Let alone spell it, our netagan have, never even heard about it.
They do not know the A,B,C,D of managing a crisis. More shocking, according to
a report by the UN, India spends about $10 billion every year for crisis
management. Could we spend this sum of money for disaster management?
Across the globe disaster
management is seen as an essential part of good governance and integral to
development planning, not so in India. There is lack of know-how for assessing
risks at local level, poor enforcement of standards and regulations and
inadequate risk mitigation, no flood risk mapping concept and flood forecasting
network. Add to this failure towards
climate change mitigation and adaptation, lack of coordination and inadequate
training at the ground level totals disaster in mitigating losses.
Besides, we have yet
to understand the atypical relationship between development and disasters.
Disasters can set back development even as post-disaster scenario provides new
opportunities for development. Similarly, development can reduce vulnerability
and yet, the same development can increase vulnerability.
Think. The National
Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) was set-up amidst much fanfare with an ambitious
three-layer (national, State and district) plan to decentralise disaster
management right up to district levels and guidelines and policies were drawn
to that effect. On paper: Good. On ground: Dud.
A 2013 scathing CAG
report minced no words: The NDMA neither had information and control over
progress of (disaster management-related) work at the State level nor was it
successful in implementation of various projects. It is “ineffective in its
functioning in most of the core areas.” What’s more, the Authority has been
functioning without its core advisory committee of experts that advises it on
different aspects of disaster management for the past three years!
Said a senior NDMA
official, “The NDMA was bound to fail, as we were always a top-heavy
organisation with many having no expertise in the realm of disaster. Worse, it is
not performing several functions prescribed in the Disaster Management Act,
2005. No long-term responses have been developed, as it is assumed that by
sanctions monies their job is done.” Who will be held accountable? Whose head
will roll?
Woefully, there are
no emergency operations centres or trained personnel to search and rescue
people. Shockingly, this is not due to lack of money, since 2010 till date the
Central Government has budgeted over $5 billion to prepare for disasters with
the Centre contributing 75%.
Experts aver due to
global warming frequent and intense extreme weather events means India must
improve its planning and reduce the potential impact of disasters before they
occur. Communication and connectivity enhancement have become the need of the
hour. Satellite images tell us about the affected areas during a calamity, but
we need higher resolution images.
Towards that end, our
leaders need to involve experts and environmentalists with a track record of
research and policy making. Who would evaluate the ecological problems, study
its context and be involved in decision and policy-making. With special
emphasis on problems created by burgeoning population and its impact on the
local eco-system, growth of hap-hazard housing, environmental insanitation and decay.
The problem is neither
States nor Centre have a robust decision-support system. If the meteorological
department indicates heavy rainfall, what are the implications? Who should be
evacuated, and from where to where? We need to move from simple forecasting to
impact forecasting and ensure information flows faster than the floodwater. In
such situations, the communication system is the first to collapse.
High time we transit
quickly to preparedness-centric approach instead of continuing to be in the
relief-centric mode and invest in better flood forecasting policy. One way
environmentalists believe this could be improved is if evacuated people had
safe structures on firm ground and not in flood plains; something authorities
have not been able to ensure.
Another is for States
to build regional mutual-aid centres, with quick response teams as it is wasteful
for each State to build parallel inventories, forecasting systems and teams as these
are Alongside, flood destruction could be
minimized if forecasting and mapping is accurate. However climate change
complicates this as places which did not previously suffer floods are now
experiencing unprecedented levels of rainfall.
True, Namo’s response
has been dabang till date,
undertaking aerial surveys of affected districts and earmarking monies from the
Prime Minister’s Relief Fund. But this is not enough. India needs to focus on
long-term planning else without a shift in approach each disaster will continue
to frustrate the Government and plague people.
Remember, desperate
situations demand desperate action. The Government must stop playing pied
piper. Life is not about collating statistics but flesh and blood. No longer
can we ostrich-like bury our heads in the sand and wail, what’s the big deal, disaster
management never heard of it! ---- INFA
(Copyright, India
News & Feature Alliance)
|