It was in April, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India exposed chinks in the armour of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) saying it is ill-prepared to handle potential natural or man-made disasters and there are significant delays and mismanagement in respective State Disaster Response Funds (SDRF).
The Gaps:
■ Cloudbursts and flash floods are an annual occurrence, but NDMA project for flood mitigation remains incomplete along with other critical lapses in school safety, mobile radiation detection system and national disaster management information.
■ Only eight states prepared emergency action plans for 192 large dams against the targeted 4,728 large dams in 29 states. Modernisation project to enhance weather forecasting capabilities for cyclones and tsunamis is not completed.
■ In Uttarakhand, no risk management plan prepared for early warning and reliable communication system was inadequate as the sharing of disaster information was delayed by more than three hours in 50 to 86 per cent cases.
■ The state did not utilise Central funds to strengthen disaster management machinery. There were delays in submitting utilisation certificate of funds during 2007-2011.
■ The district authorities never submitted utilisation certificate in time and the state’s share of Central grant for 2011-2012 was stopped by the home ministry. This despite the fact that 28 per cent causalities in the state in the last five years were due to excessive rains and 18 per cent from cloudburst.
■ State disaster authority chaired by Chief Minister never met even once since its creation in October 2007.