The five Ps of disaster management
portionate global comparisons. In the 2011 tsunami-earthquake, Japan allocated $167 billion for rehabilitation and recovery. It made a five-year plan to do so comprehensively. Similarly, the US Congress allocated $121.7 billion in hurricane relief in 2005 and 2008. Earthquake-prone Iran allocated 2% its national annual budget towards disaster risk reduction, including $4 billion in 2012. Though precise figures for allocation “per head of vulnerable group” are not available, it is clear that comparisons with India on per-affectedpopulation basis yield a dismal picture.
Fourth, random allocation is far less useful than targeted and focused relief measures. Japan’s targeted five-year plan focussed on each stakeholder — from fisheries to housing and power. Knee-jerk reactions in grand mega-announcements after cyclones, without specific sub-allocations, lose their limited vigour and vitality by the time they reach the ground target.
Fifth, planned and targeted measures need to be coupled with a robust institutional framework. After 2011, the Japanese government enacted the “Act on the Development of Tsunami-resilient Communities”, to efficiently combine structural and non-structural measures to minimise damage.
All municipalities had to draft their reconstruction plans based on modelling and the plans were based entirely on urban planning, land management, structural mitigation and relocation. Such innovations have barely been conceptualised in India, much less implemented and even medium-term thinking, much less long-term planning, is conspicuously overwhelmed by short-term ad hocism.
Finally, and ironically given our cyclical annual natural disasters, we have very little policy focus on pre-disaster countermeasures. Prevention is always better than cure, and such countermeasures will be highly effective as well as cost-effective. Many countries in their disaster-prone coastal regions have constructed high seawalls to protect vulnerable communities. Odisha’s cyclone shelters are a praiseworthy-but-partial achievement, deserving emulation.
We need five “Ps” to cope up with recurring disasters — prominence, as in the role of governments; a pool of funds; planning, especially long-term, of rehabilitation and development; policy qua institutional support; and preparedness qua countermeasures.
There is light after the longest tunnels and only with these five “Ps” can we dream with French impressionist Paul Gauguin, who said, “The cyclone ends. The sun returns; the lofty coconut trees lift up their plumes again; man does likewise. The great anguish is over; joy has returned; the sea smiles like a child.”