Disaster Management is the discipline of dealing with and avoiding risks. It is a discipline that involves preparing for disaster before it occurs, disaster response, and supporting, and rebuilding society after natural or man made disasters have occurred. In general, any Disaster Management is the continuous process by which all individuals, groups, and communities manage hazards in an effort to avoid or ameliorate the impact of disasters resulting from the hazards. Actions taken depend in part on perceptions of risk of those exposed. Effective Disaster emergency management relies on thorough integration of disaster management plans at all levels of government and non-government involvement. Activities at each level individual, group, community affect the other levels.
Recent earthquake in Haiti has again brought the issue of disaster management at the fore front in the development sector. The world communities have started relief and rehabilitation operation sincerely but the immediate losses could not be stopped. As reported the Presidential Palace was collapsed, one could under stand the plight of commoners. AP( Associated Press) reported, that after two months of devastation “Trash and sewage are piling up at the squalid tent camps that hundreds of thousands have called home — and with torrential rains expected any day, authorities are not even close to providing the shelters they promised. Two months since the Jan. 12 quake, the government has yet to relocate a single person, despite a pledge that people would be moving into resettlement areas by early February.” One has to understand that this is the condition after more than a decade when world over Disaster management was taken as a part of developmental process that concluded any major disaster is direct set back to ongoing development work.
In India, few lessons were learnt when major earthquakes in Gujarat and Super cyclone in Orissa had jolted the entire political and bureaucratic class. After the super cyclone it was primarily felt to work on Disaster as a part of developmental process and sensitizing and awareness generation at community level would reduce the risk of disaster when it struck. In another way the cost incurred during prevention of disaster and cost incurred after disaster to initiate the normal socio-economic life has a major fiscal difference. This leads to initiate a major community driven disaster management programme. Against the back drop The developmental arm of UN, UNDP with the help of Ministry of Home Affairs, GoI had started the Disaster Risk Management Programme in India across seventeen states and 169 districts covering substantial part of the country .The prg itself has completed its five years terms and second phase has also started but can we say that the prg has achieved its primary objective? Nature of work done and change in the people’s perception on disaster management has changed a bit or not? This may happen that the prg itself has given birth to hundreds of development professionals who have started making the living and livelihood on these activites and few more people who got self motivated by this cause are working tirelessly.
Further one can argue that it is always easier to criticize than start working to filter on those deficiencies for the prg or person who has been accused. This may also be described as a fad of Indian middle class drawing room talks but issues; like Disaster Management has been making a great impact on most of the common people of our country. It may have less affect on citizens of developed countries but they also cdnt save them selves from Katrina or recent spate of urban floods being faced by them. Back to the issue, I would like to highlight few aspects of the prg being implemented by the UNDP along with the government departments in most of the district of various states .As a UN volunteer, I was posted at Begusarai one of the semi -urban district of Bihar. One of the major aspect of prg was to plan and prepare a disaster management plan for villages, tehsil, block, sub division and district and states against the natural disaster that particular place may face in coming days. But most of the plans prepared were of very poor quality and has no takers. Nor the implementing agencies neither the government who has mandate to adopt it could work accordingly. To make the matter worst, the plan was one-dimensional, apart from few socio economic basic data’s and name of few officials from district or village level there is hardly important information one can find. This is a story of most of the plans prepared at village, block and district level. At present I am not sure how many Indian states can claim that they have robust, tested disaster management plan.Mahatashtra was one of the early states who proclaimed state level disaster management plan but during Mumbai flood its utility was found to be zero. One of the glaring reason was they had not thought of that flood can occur in Mumbai so there was no established operational mechanism against it. But contradicting it at the same time some top class development also took place like setting up of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), an agency specially to look mainly after response during any natural disasters and setting some standards in relief and rescue measures with rapid movement and mobilization of their resources with minimum lapses of time. This is my firm belief that establishing an institution may be an arduous task but can be done, compare it with community mobilisation process that appears simple but complex to achieve. NDMA’s work during disaster struck due to change of course by river Koshi was remarkable.
Many more developmental agencies have also come in the filed of Disaster Management with grand agenda to serve the poor and vulnerable during an emergency. But whatever their vision and mission , most of them have started disaster management wing not because of their love and empathy for the common masses, but because the fund flow which has increased in this sector and that may make happy living of few disaster management experts ,directors and so called domain experts. They are never tired to boast about the importance of community participation in all the seminars and forums if given chance to speak up invited or uninvited. But again there are some good aspects also. European Commission have been sincerely sanctioning projects of relief, rehabilitation and preparation after every disaster in India and around the world. I had a personal experience of working in two of the project of relief and rehabilitation in Muzaffarpur on behalf of Care India and some good work was completed that really helped the affected community. Whether it was Koshi in Bihar or Tsunami, and recent Aila in West Bengal they have responded during every disaster. One can raise a question about the length of project that is small in nature with shorter time period. But this is one agency or organization becoming a ray of hope for many international agencies wishes to show their presence in the affected area but due to lack of fund for immediate resource mobilization they may not do much.
Thematically speaking because of the evolving nature of the subject itself quite a number of persons / organizations are not sure what and how they want to work in this area. One of the biggest concerns is that most of the organizational wings of Disaster Management takes a back seat during normal time where there is less work to do. It is the demand of the time that these issues should not be only taken at national level but must also be linked up with most of the ongoing developmental prg of public and private sectors. In India within a couple of years number of national level social development prg have been introduced by the government be it NREGS, NRHM, HIV- AIDS, SARVA SIKSHA ABHIYAN etc but none of them have addressed the issue of disaster. For them it is still being perceived as a one of the event that comes and goes. Where as now it has been clearly established that process of development and disasters are directly linked to each other and both can’t go into opposite direction..
What I meant to say from entire argument is that the discipline of disaster management should not be taken as a one of the subject to read and understand to produce few experts that may provide some tangible benefits to the society, rather it should be taken as subject in-built in most of issues. It can also be termed as “Hub and Spoke concept” where all the developmental subjects will be acting as spoke, executing some or other form of Disaster Management activities finally converging at pinnacle of development. In continuation the million dollar question that creeps in most of the development practioners that how much it relates with poverty?. Well if we view poverty alleviation as a matter of income generation it may or may not address it but if we can view poverty as a diverse and dynamic, social inferiority, isolation, physical weakness and vulnerability then certainly it has major role to play in all form of socio economic development (Poverty and Livelihoods: Whose Reality Counts Robert Chambers, ISD Papers). The complex relationship with poverty and disaster management is also well argued by Mr. S.Yodamani in his chapter “Disaster Preparedness and Management”
Further one can argue that it is always easier to criticize than start working to filter on those deficiencies for the prg or person who has been accused. This may also be described as a fad of Indian middle class drawing room talks but issues; like Disaster Management has been making a great impact on most of the common people of our country. It may have less affect on citizens of developed countries but they also cdnt save them selves from Katrina or recent spate of urban floods being faced by them. Back to the issue, I would like to highlight few aspects of the prg being implemented by the UNDP along with the government departments in most of the district of various states .As a UN volunteer, I was posted at Begusarai one of the semi -urban district of Bihar. One of the major aspect of prg was to plan and prepare a disaster management plan for villages, tehsil, block, sub division and district and states against the natural disaster that particular place may face in coming days. But most of the plans prepared were of very poor quality and has no takers. Nor the implementing agencies neither the government who has mandate to adopt it could work accordingly. To make the matter worst, the plan was one-dimensional, apart from few socio economic basic data’s and name of few officials from district or village level there is hardly important information one can find. This is a story of most of the plans prepared at village, block and district level. At present I am not sure how many Indian states can claim that they have robust, tested disaster management plan.Mahatashtra was one of the early states who proclaimed state level disaster management plan but during Mumbai flood its utility was found to be zero. One of the glaring reason was they had not thought of that flood can occur in Mumbai so there was no established operational mechanism against it. But contradicting it at the same time some top class development also took place like setting up of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), an agency specially to look mainly after response during any natural disasters and setting some standards in relief and rescue measures with rapid movement and mobilization of their resources with minimum lapses of time. This is my firm belief that establishing an institution may be an arduous task but can be done, compare it with community mobilisation process that appears simple but complex to achieve. NDMA’s work during disaster struck due to change of course by river Koshi was remarkable.
Many more developmental agencies have also come in the filed of Disaster Management with grand agenda to serve the poor and vulnerable during an emergency. But whatever their vision and mission , most of them have started disaster management wing not because of their love and empathy for the common masses, but because the fund flow which has increased in this sector and that may make happy living of few disaster management experts ,directors and so called domain experts. They are never tired to boast about the importance of community participation in all the seminars and forums if given chance to speak up invited or uninvited. But again there are some good aspects also. European Commission have been sincerely sanctioning projects of relief, rehabilitation and preparation after every disaster in India and around the world. I had a personal experience of working in two of the project of relief and rehabilitation in Muzaffarpur on behalf of Care India and some good work was completed that really helped the affected community. Whether it was Koshi in Bihar or Tsunami, and recent Aila in West Bengal they have responded during every disaster. One can raise a question about the length of project that is small in nature with shorter time period. But this is one agency or organization becoming a ray of hope for many international agencies wishes to show their presence in the affected area but due to lack of fund for immediate resource mobilization they may not do much.
Thematically speaking because of the evolving nature of the subject itself quite a number of persons / organizations are not sure what and how they want to work in this area. One of the biggest concerns is that most of the organizational wings of Disaster Management takes a back seat during normal time where there is less work to do. It is the demand of the time that these issues should not be only taken at national level but must also be linked up with most of the ongoing developmental prg of public and private sectors. In India within a couple of years number of national level social development prg have been introduced by the government be it NREGS, NRHM, HIV- AIDS, SARVA SIKSHA ABHIYAN etc but none of them have addressed the issue of disaster. For them it is still being perceived as a one of the event that comes and goes. Where as now it has been clearly established that process of development and disasters are directly linked to each other and both can’t go into opposite direction..
What I meant to say from entire argument is that the discipline of disaster management should not be taken as a one of the subject to read and understand to produce few experts that may provide some tangible benefits to the society, rather it should be taken as subject in-built in most of issues. It can also be termed as “Hub and Spoke concept” where all the developmental subjects will be acting as spoke, executing some or other form of Disaster Management activities finally converging at pinnacle of development. In continuation the million dollar question that creeps in most of the development practioners that how much it relates with poverty?. Well if we view poverty alleviation as a matter of income generation it may or may not address it but if we can view poverty as a diverse and dynamic, social inferiority, isolation, physical weakness and vulnerability then certainly it has major role to play in all form of socio economic development (Poverty and Livelihoods: Whose Reality Counts Robert Chambers, ISD Papers). The complex relationship with poverty and disaster management is also well argued by Mr. S.Yodamani in his chapter “Disaster Preparedness and Management”
