Subject: Disaster Management

Disaster struck Dima Hasao, central Assam’s hill district, in mid-May after incessant heavy rainfall.

Impacts of the disaster

• The 170 km railway line connecting Lumding in the Brahmaputra Valley’s Hojai district and Badarpur in the Barak Valley’s Karimganj district was severely affected.
• The Assam government and Railway Ministry’s assessments said the district suffered a loss of more than ₹1,000 crore, but ecologists say the damage could be irreversibly higher.

How severe has the rain been in Assam?

• Assam is used to floods, sometimes even four times a year, resultant landslides and erosion.
• But the pre-monsoon showers this year have been particularly severe on Dima Hasao, one of three hill districts in the State.
• Landslips have claimed four lives and damaged roads.
• The impact has been most severe on the arterial railway, which was breached at 58 locations leaving the track hanging in several places.
• The disruption of train services, unlikely to be restored soon, has cut off the flood-hit Barak Valley, parts of Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura.

Why is the railway in focus post-disaster?

• Dima Hasao straddles the Barail, a tertiary mountain range between the Brahmaputra and Barak River basins.
• The district is on the Dauki fault (the prone-to-earthquakes geological fractures between two blocks of rocks) straddling Bangladesh and parts of the northeast.
• British engineers were said to have factored in the fragility of the hills to build the railway line over 16 years by 1899.
• The end result was an engineering marvel 221 km long over several bridges and through 37 tunnels, laid along the safer sections of the hills.

A faulty experiment

• A project to convert the metre gauge track to broad gauge was undertaken in 1996 but the work was completed only by March 2015 because of geotechnical constraints and extremist groups.
• The broad-gauge track was realigned to be straighter, but a 2009-10 audit report revealed that the project had been undertaken without proper planning and visualisation of the soil strata behaviour.
• The report gave the example of the disaster-prone Tunnel 10 on the realigned track that was pegged 8 meters below the bed of a nearby stream.

Is only the railway at fault?

• There is a general consensus that other factors have contributed to the situation Dima Hasao is in today.
• Roads in the district, specifically the four-lane Saurashtra-Silchar (largest Barak Valley town) East-West Corridor, have been realigned or deviated from the old ones that were planned around rivers and largely weathered the conditions.
• The arterial roads build over the past 20 years often cave in and get washed away by floods or blocked by landslides.
• Shortened cycles of jhum or shifting cultivation on the hill slopes and unregulated mining have accentuated the “man-made disaster”.
• Massive extraction of river stone, illegal mining of coal and smuggling of forest timbe has led to the disaster.
• These activities have increased water current besides weakening either side of riverbanks.

How vital are the rail and highway through Dima Hasao?

• Meghalaya aside, Dima Hasao is the geographical link to a vast region comprising southern Assam’s Barak Valley, parts of Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura.
• Moreover, this track is vital for India’s Look East policy that envisages shipping goods to and from Bangladesh’s Chittagong port via Tripura’s border points at Akhaura and Sabroom.
• These are the last railway station near the Feni River that serves as the India-Bangladesh border.

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Context

The severe cyclones, Tauktae and Yaas, battered India earlier this year. With a rise in the frequency of devastating cyclones, India needs to look at long-term mitigation measures.

India’s vulnerability

• The Indian coastline is around 7,500 km; there are 96 coastal districts (which touch the coast or are close to it), with 262 million people exposed to cyclones and tsunamis.
• The World Bank and the United Nations (2010) estimate that around 200 million city residents would be exposed to storms and earthquakes by 2050 in India.
• Between 1891 and 2020, out of the 313 cyclones crossing India’s eastern and western coasts, the west coast experienced 31 cyclones, while 282 cyclones crossed the east coast.
• Among the natural disasters, cyclones constituted the second most frequent phenomena that occurred in 15% of India’s total natural disasters over 1999-2020.
• According to the Global Climate Risk Index report 2021, India ranks the seventh worst-hit country globally in 2019 due to the frequent occurrence of extreme weather-related events.
• Increase in frequency: According to India Meteorological Department (IMD), 2013 data frequency of cyclones in the coastal States accounting increased by 7%.
• Factor’s responsible: Increasing sea surface temperatures in the northern Indian Ocean and the geo-climatic conditions in India are the factors responsible for the increase in frequency.

Economic cost

• Between 1999 and 2020, cyclones inflicted substantial damage to public and private properties, amounting to an increase in losses from $2,990 million to $14,920 million in the absence of long-term mitigation measures.
• India lost around 2% of GDP and 15% of total revenue over 1999-2020.
• Between 1999-2020, around 12,388 people were killed, and the damage was estimated at $32,615 million.
• Cyclones are the second most expensive in terms of the costs incurred in damage, accounting for 29% of the total disaster-related damages after floods (62%).
• In addition, they are the third most lethal disaster in India after earthquakes (42%) and floods (33%).

Odisha model

• In the aftermath of the 1999 super cyclone, the Government of Odisha took up various cyclone mitigation measures.
• These included installing a disaster warning system in the coastal districts, and construction of evacuation shelters in cyclone-prone districts.
• Other steps were the setting up of the Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA), conducting regular cabinet meetings for disaster preparedness, and building the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF).

Way forward

• Still, Odisha’s disaster management model is inadequate to minimise the economic losses that result from cyclones.
• Therefore, the Government of India should adopt a few measures to minimise disaster damage and fatalities.
• Improve warning system: It is imperative to improve the cyclone warning system and revamp disaster preparedness measures.
• Increase cover under shelterbelt plantation: The Government must widen the cover under shelterbelt plantations and help regenerate mangroves in coastal regions to lessen the impact of cyclones.
• In addition, adopting cost-effective, long-term mitigation measures, including building cyclone-resilient infrastructure such as constructing storm surge-resilient embankments, canals and improving river connectivity to prevent waterlogging in low-lying areas are important.
• Disaster resilient power infrastructure: installing disaster-resilient power infrastructure in the coastal districts, providing concrete houses to poor and vulnerable households, and creating massive community awareness campaigns are essential.
• Coordination between Centre-State: Healthy coordination between the Centre and the States concerned is essential to collectively design disaster mitigation measures.
• Collective mitigation effort by the Centre and States that can help reduce the fiscal burden of States and also be effective in minimising disaster deaths.

Conclusion

Long term mitigation measures are essential to minimise the impact of the disasters such as cyclones.

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Under the existing Scheme of State Disaster Response Fund / National Response Fund of the Ministry of Home Affairs, there is no provision to declare any disaster including flood as a National Calamity.

How does the law define a disaster?

• A natural disaster includes earthquake, flood, landslide, cyclone, tsunami, urban flood, heatwave; a man-made disaster can be nuclear, biological and chemical.
• As per the Disaster Management Act, 2005, “disaster” means:

1. A catastrophe, mishap, calamity or grave occurrence in any area, arising from natural or man-made causes, or
2. It results in substantial loss of life or human suffering or damage to, and destruction of, property, or damage to, or degradation of, environment, and
3. Damage is of such a nature or magnitude as to be beyond the coping capacity of the community of the affected area.

How can any of these be classified as a national disaster?

• There is no provision, executive or legal, to declare a natural calamity as a national calamity.
• The existing guidelines of the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF)/ National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF), do not contemplate declaring a disaster as a National Calamity.

Has there ever been an attempt to define a national calamity?

• In 2001, the National Committee under the chairmanship of the then PM was mandated to look into the parameters that should define a national calamity.
• However, the committee did not suggest any fixed criterion.

How, then, does the government classify disasters/calamities?

• The 10th Finance Commission (1995-2000) examined a proposal that a disaster be termed “a national calamity of rarest severity” if it affects one-third of the population of a state.
• The panel did not define a “calamity of rare severity” but stated that a calamity of rare severity would necessarily have to be adjudged on a case-to-case basis taking into account.

What happens if a calamity is so declared?

• When a calamity is declared to be of “rare severity/severe nature”, support to the state government is provided at the national level.
• The Centre also considers additional assistance from the NDRF.
• A Calamity Relief Fund (CRF) is set up, with the corpus shared 3:1 between Centre and state.
• When resources in the CRF are inadequate, additional assistance is considered from the National Calamity Contingency Fund (NCCF), funded 100% by the Centre.
• Relief in repayment of loans or for grant of fresh loans to the persons affected on concessional terms, too, are considered once a calamity is declared “severe”.

The Supreme Court has reserved its verdict seeking compensation of Rs 4 lakh to the kin of those who have died of Covid-19 or related complications.  The Centre has stated that state governments cannot afford to pay this, and had argued in favor of a broader approach including health interventions.

Provisions for Compensation

• Last year, the Centre declared Covid-19 as a notified disaster under the Disaster Management Act.
• Section 12(iii) of the Act says the National Authority shall recommend guidelines for the minimum standards of relief to be provided to persons affected by disaster.
• It includes “ex gratia assistance on account of loss of life as also assistance on account of damage to houses and for restoration of means of livelihood”.
• The Centre revises this amount from time to time.

What is the latest amount?

• On April 8, 2015, the Disaster Management Division of the Home Ministry wrote to all state governments and attached a revised list of “norms of assistance”.
• Under “ex gratia payment to families of deceased persons”, it specified: Rs 4 lakh per deceased person including those involved in relief operations or associated in preparedness activities.
• This is subjected to certification regarding cause of death from appropriate authority.

So, what about compensation for Covid?

• Last year the Home Ministry wrote to state governments that the central government has decided to treat it (Covid-19) as a notified disaster for the purpose of providing assistance under SDRF.
• It attached a partially modified list of items and norms of assistance.
• It did not specify payment of ex gratia to families of deceased.
• Some states have decided to pay, but not for all deaths.

How has the government responded to the petition?

• The Centre has submitted that ex gratia of Rs 4 lakh is beyond the affordability of state governments.
• It argued that if Rs 4 lakh is paid to the kin of each, it “may possibly” consume the entire amount of the State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF).
• This would leave states with insufficient funds for organizing a response to the pandemic, or to take care of other disasters.
• The centre argued that the term ex gratia itself means the amount is not based on legal entitlement.

Way ahead

• A broader approach, which involves health interventions, social protection, and economic recovery for the affected communities would be a more prudent, responsible, and sustainable approach.