Political Diary

New Delhi,17 October 2014

Disaster Management

CYCLONE? WHAT’S THAT?   

By Poonam I Kaushish

Q) What do Maharashtra and Haryana netas and residents of Andhra’s port city Visakhapatnam have in common?

A) Both have been hit by Typhoons. The former flattened by Toofan Modi and the latter crushed by Cyclone Hudhud Sunday last causing massive destruction, death and anguish. Whoever said when it rains miseries, it pours, was dead on!

As victor BJP preens over arch rivals Congress, NCP, Shiv Sena, HJC and INLD in the two States, Andhraites cheer their Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu for his impressive show of disaster preparedness. All due to the lessons he learnt after a powerful cyclone hit the State and killed 10,000 people in 1999.

Only 24 deaths were reported among over 2,48,004 people affected in the State and adjoining Odisha even as losses totaled Rs 70,000 crores. Over 1.5lakhs people have been evacuated from four districts encompassing 396 villages and shifted to 370 relief camps and shelters, high-rise buildings etc. Happily the airport, train services, communications and power supply crippled by Hudhud cruising at deafening 190 kmph winds, were restored within three days.

Alas, not all States are as prepared as Andhra and Odisha post Cyclone Phallin last year. Scandalously most, like UP and Uttarakhand have not even established disaster management departments or those which have one they are simply naam ke vaste.

For example, when unprecedented flash floods nee Himalayan Tsunami wreaked havoc across Uttarakhand’s holy city Kedarnath last June, causing rivers to overflow triggering massive landslides the Administration was clueless. It helplessly watched the catastrophe as 6,000 died and the lives of two million people, one-fifth of the State’s population was torn asunder.

Raising a moot point: Why do our netagan prioritise something as crucial as cyclones and floods only at crises time? Why is so little done to develop a long-term response to what is an annual predictable problem? Why is it that every time disaster strikes people go on a rampage as water, rations even biscuits run dry? Why aren’t adequate arrangements made to ensure survivors don’t die of starvation, due to the Administration’s ineptitude.

Why do politicians always measure the problems in monetary terms? How does a problem get solved by the monies sanctioned by them? Why is it assumed that one who sanctions hundreds of crores has done more for cyclonic storms and flood than another who sends only a couple of crores. Who will be held accountable? And which head will roll?

Undeniably, the Governments’ approach is one of criminal casualness. It only reacts after people and cattle have either lost their lives. Not for them implementation of basic suggestions and developing long-term responses. Think. Around 76 per cent of India's coastline is prone to cyclones and tsunamis, while 59 per cent of the country is vulnerable to earthquakes, 10 per cent to floods and river erosion, and 68 per cent to droughts.

Funds are doled out from the Calamity Relief Fund. Little realizing that instead of helping the people, most State Governments use this for purposes other than disaster management or to create infrastructure for which money is provided in the regular budget. Worse, everything is kaam chalao! Crisis over it is back to business as usual.

Alarmingly, there is no effective coordination between various rural development programmes. The Agriculture and Water Resources Ministries work in opposite directions. Each Minister and his babus guard their fiefdom with zealousness. Let alone coordination, even silly information is shrouded in secrecy.

The less said about disaster management the better. Leave alone spell it, our netagan have, never even heard about it. They do not know the A,B,C,D of managing a crisis which essentially comprises preparedness, mitigation and rehabilitation.

Preparedness entails focusing on the most vulnerable areas and educating the people how to handle a cyclone or flood. Where they should run to take shelter. Setting up an effective communication network. Providing satellite phones to stranded people and bring them to safety. Carrying out a safety drill from time to time.  Mitigation involves construction of safe shelters and houses to reduce the effect of the impending disaster. Villagers are made to undergo training at village centres about safe building procedures.

Shockingly, the Comptroller and Auditor General’s 2010 report lamented the country’s disaster management preparedness and warned of impending disaster including severe natural ecology hazards. Resulting from de-forestation and erosion of hill slopes along river-beds and spread of unregulated buildings along river banks.

Besides, mushrooming of 42 hydel power projects and 203 under construction on the Bhagirathi and Alaknanda rivers has worsened the impact of cyclones and floods which could result in flash floods and lead to huge loss of lives. Rehabilitation work entails replacing implements and tools of workers to carry on with their life post-disaster.

But the problem arises when villagers with pucca houses refuse to leave as they worried about their life-long savings. During drought cowherds, shepherds and agriculturists of the fertile, rich coastal belt prefer to die along with their cattle and tools, their source of livelihood.

Thankfully, NGOs have been working alongside State Administrations to carry on the task at the micro village level. By preparing a village contingency plan, organizing the community, identifying vulnerable places and educating the people to face the disaster.

Organising drills regularly so people know what to do when an alert is issued -- locking up their homes, keeping their cattle in safe places and taking only a few clothes and important documents with them. Thus, the Government and NGOs compliment and supplement each other’s work unitedly.

Experts aver that thanks to global warming more frequent and intense extreme weather events means India must improve their planning and reduce the potential impact of disasters before they occur.

Towards that end, the powers-that-be need to involve experts and environmentalists with a genuine track record of research and policy making. Who would evaluate the ecological problems, study its context and be involved in decision and policy-making. With special emphasis on problems created by burgeoning population and its impact on the local eco-system, growth of hap-hazard housing, environmental  insanitation and decay.

India needs to focus on long-term rather than short-term planning. True, Prime Minister Modi’s response has been dabang both in Kashmir recently and Andhra, undertaking an aerial survey of the affected districts and earmarking Rs 1000 crores from the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund. But less said the better of our other netagan.

It is high time they pull up their bootstraps instead of going through rituals, albeit shedding copious glycerin tears in the hope these would wipe the hear-wrenching cries for help and help garner votes at election time. All lament the deaths. But their screams are gagged by their ambitions.

You need neither a bleeding heart nor blindness to calamity to know what should be done. Desperate situations call for desperate action. Time not to ask but to act. Not pious platitudes but firm performance. Life is not collating numbers, but flesh and blood with beating hearts. Can we just let them bleed? ----- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)