NEW DELHI: In a bid to effectively mitigate and manage different kinds of disasters, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has issued a notification assigning different ministries and departments to act as nodal agency.
The ministries would work on monitoring, issuing early warning, prevention, mitigation and preparedness, to ensure zero or minimum inconvenience and casualties due to such hazards.
The notification, a copy of which is with TNIE, signed by Joint Secretary Dr Rajesh Gupta, formalises a coordinated disaster management framework across India, ensuring that ministries are accountable for doing the required jobs specific to various natural and man-made hazards.
As per the notification, while avalanches, oil spills are assigned to the Ministry of Defence to handle, the Ministry of Earth Sciences will provide early warning for the cold wave, cyclone, tornado, earthquake, heat wave, lightning, tsunami, hailstorms and heavy rainfall.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) would require dealing with biological disasters, whereas the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has been given responsibility for frost and cold wave, drought, hailstorm and pest attack.
The Ministry of Jal Shakti will handle floods, glacial lake outburst flood and Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs will take care urban floods (excluding early warning), it noted.
The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has been given the responsibility for forest fire, industrial and chemical disasters, and the Ministry of Mines will handle landslides, and the Department of Atomic Energy will take care of nuclear and radiological emergencies, the NHA notification said.