Pushing a paradigm shift in disaster response

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs has suggested that Assam and the rest of the northeast region, which is prone to disasters, should gradually but definitely move away from spending money on relief and toward spending money on investments that focus on mitigation. This is a good idea because it will help reduce risk, build resilience, and create preventive infrastructure. A course correction from reactive public spending for post-disaster relief and rehabilitation to forward-looking resilience-building and preventive infrastructure is long overdue. The committee’s observation that the disaster-related expenditure remains largely relief-centric, with comparatively lower emphasis on mitigation and risk reduction measures, which are essential for reducing long-term disaster losses, mirrors persistent gaps in disaster risk reduction in the region. Another critical area of concern is the persistent gaps in the completion, standardisation, and enforceability of hazard mapping across the country, which the committee observed in its latest report and which deserves urgent action from the government. It emphasises that understanding risks is vital for a strong Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) plan and recommends that mapping of multiple hazards, like floods, landslides, earthquakes, and glacial lakes, should be done quickly and made required in all states and Union Territories at risk of these disasters to ensure it is properly included in planning and development. In Assam, embankments play the most crucial role in building flood resilience by preventing the inundation of farm fields protected by these preventive infrastructures. As most of these embankments have already outlived their utility span, they are prone to breach, which increases the flood risks. Periodic strengthening is carried out, but replacing the old embankments with new and strong structures is essential to ensure that no breach occurs during the annual flood season. Zero breach in embankments will ensure minimal damage to standing crop and household properties, which, in turn, will significantly reduce public spending in rescue, relief and rehabilitation. Other important suggestions from the committee include creating floodplain zoning and river management rules in all at-risk states to tackle problems like illegal building, unplanned growth, and repeated flood damage; closely monitoring development in sensitive areas like hills and coastlines; and setting up a clear system to hold people accountable for rule-breaking, which will help stop harmful practices that make disasters worse. Implementing these recommendations demands the integration of disaster risk reduction into developmental and infrastructure planning. Environmental impact assessments for infrastructure projects usually focus on ecological harm and effects on wildlife, but they don’t adequately show the increased disaster risks linked to these projects in their detailed reports. The policy framework of fast-tracking project execution by relaxing EIA norms in disaster-prone regions like the northeast is problematic if adequate safeguards are not established. The northeast region needs accelerated development, but if the developmental and infrastructure projects are pushed beyond the region’s capacity to absorb ecological shocks sparked by the rush to fast-track project execution, it can only amplify the environmental degradation and disaster risks. Ignoring this reality can be costly, as evidenced by the alarming rise in major landslide incidents in the hill states of the region, which are triggered by monsoon rains that disrupt traffic and cut off supplies; this increase is attributed to rampant cutting of hill slopes, massive tree felling, and inadequate landslide risk mitigation during the construction of new highways or the expansion of existing ones. The Committee’s recommendation for a shift from a district-level approach in early warning dissemination to a hyper-local forecasting and communication mechanism at the level of villages, urban wards and vulnerable habitations is a pragmatic piece of advice to the government to strengthen disaster resilience and preparedness of the communities and local administration. Effective implementation of the recommendation for developing “a fully integrated, multi-hazard early warning system at the national level, bringing together key agencies and state authorities into a single unified and interoperable platform, so as to ensure seamless data sharing, real-time coordination and timely dissemination of warnings” calls for states putting in place a strong decentralised disaster response mechanism at the village and urban ward level. District-level disaster plans can be dynamically updated in real time if village- and urban-ward-level disaster planning is introduced. This will enhance hyper-local disaster readiness and immediate resource availability, significantly contributing to strengthening community preparedness at the hyper-local level. Local residents and authorities in disaster-prone villages can enhance their resilience and preparedness by staying informed about evolving and persistent disaster risks. Staying informed about evolving and persistent disaster risks can enhance their resilience and preparedness. Achieving the desired changes will require states, especially those in the Northeast, to take proactive roles in pushing policy reforms, planning to impress upon the central government to initiate it in light of the region’s high multi-hazard risks and weak financial capacity to build the required disaster response system on their own. A stronger public discourse on such a paradigm shift in risk reduction can drive the essential policy and planning framework.