The new disaster control plan is too generic
It must be supplemented by national roadmaps for resilience with clear goals and ideas on resource mobilisation
The much-awaited National Disaster Management Plan was released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this month. The plan closes a critical gap in our disaster management system — while most states and districts have prepared their plans, the national plan that was supposed to guide this process at the sub-national level was missing.
This invited criticism from the Supreme Court, the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament and the Comptroller and Auditor General. Surely the government would no longer be embarrassed for its failure to write a plan even a decade after the mandate of the Disaster Management Act . But India has miles to go if the vision of the plan to ‘make India disaster resilient’ has to be a reality.
There are several problems in the National Disaster Management Plan. First, it fails to lay down a clear roadmap. It is too generic in its identification of the activities to be undertaken by the Centre and states for disaster risk mitigation, preparedness, response, recovery, reconstruction, and governance.
Second, the plan refrains from providing a time frame for undertaking these activities beyond vaguely prescribing that these must be taken up in short-, medium-, mid- and long-term basis.
Third, the plan does not project the requirement of funds, nor does it provide any clue as to how funds shall be mobilised. It does not provide a framework for monitoring and evaluation of the plan.
In short, the plan is devoid of many important elements that make a robust action plan. It may fulfil the formal requirement of law of having a plan but it may not be very effective in achieving its grandiose vision of building resilience.
The activities listed in the plan are nothing new: These are provided in the Act and in nearly two dozen national guidelines developed by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) since 2007. Some of the earlier guidelines did have a timeframe for implementation, but the national plan cautiously refrains from providing any roadmap.
The NDMA had earlier developed a framework of developing a comprehensive national plan on disaster management in 14 parts, of which 12 would be mitigation plans, one for capacity development, and one for response.
The plan is aligned with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and Sustainable Development Goals, but unlike in the Sendai Framework or the SDGs, the plan does not set any goals or targets, nor does it spell out how the Sendai goals and targets shall be achieved.
So the plan needs to be supplemented by national roadmaps for disaster resilience with clear goals, targets, and ideas about how resources shall be mobilised for its implementation.