Policy makers of the Disaster Management Authority rule the roost in salubrious environs. But its stepchild, the poorly funded, undermanned Disaster Response Force whose men face dangers of floods and earthquakes lack even basic amenities like vehicles, not to mention offices or permanent space.
Imagine this. Srinagar and most of Kashmir is submerged under the angry waters of the Jhelum. Around 11.30 pm on September 12 the wireless radio in a ramshackle command centre of India’s dedicated rescue and relief force, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) crackles to life informing that 200 people are trapped in Zabarvan Colony, Srinagar. The message is immediately relayed to a NDRF Battalion in Rambagh and to Director General of NDRF, O P Singh who is leading the rescue operation from the front. But, he is helpless. There is no vehicle for his men to transport the rescue boat to the location, since the organisation has no vehicles of its own and has to depend on the others like the Army, the Air Force and the local police for logistics.
In spite of this, a truck is commandeered from the BSF and the NDRF jawans evacuate all the stranded to safety. Now, imagine this. In far away New Delhi, in the gleaming NDMA Bhavan in the leafy upmarket Sagdarjung Enclave, the lights are off. The policy makers, the experts and even the support staff have called it a day.
The National Disaster Management Authority, which was criticized by CAG in 2013 for being found “ineffective in its functioning in most of the core areas, since it neither had information and control over the progress of work at the state level nor was it successful in implementation of various projects,” has played hardly any role in the rescue and relief operations apart from claiming in a press release that the operations were conducted “under its command.”
This apex body organization structure has a Vice-Chairman and eight members nominated by the Prime Minister, who is also Chairperson of the NDMA. Its organisational structure consists of a Secretary and five Joint Secretaries including one Financial Advisor.
They are assisted by 20 consultants and numerous support staff, from peons to chauffeurs. The total strength of NDMA, Secretariat including, is 93. Their main job is to approve a national disaster plan and lay down guidelines to be followed by state authorities in drawing up the state plans in turn and coordinate with other ministries for implementation of the policy and plan.
NDMA websites claims that the apex body prepared 11 reports including capacity building, revamping of civil defence, management of dead in the aftermath of disaster and training regime for disaster response etc. According to the CAG report, NDMA had been circulating various national guidelines since April 2007 but there was no information as to whether these were being adopted and used by Ministries, Departments and State Governments.
Parliamentary standing committee on Home Affairs’ February 2014 report suggests that out of five sanctioned projects in 11th five year plan, only one project “Microzonation of Major Cities” has been completed by NDMA while four others, Vulnerability Atlases Projects having components of preparation of upgraded earthquake hazards maps; Preparation of upgraded flood hazard maps; Preparation of upgraded landslide hazards maps, Setting up of Mobile Radiation Detection Systems (MRDS), National School Safety Project, and National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project are under implementation.
The NDMA Act holds the Institute responsible for “planning and promoting training and research in the area of disaster management, documentation and development of national level information base relating to disaster management policies, prevention mechanisms and mitigation measures”.