Preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation are the four phases of a disaster management cycle. Earlier approaches treated disaster management as calamity relief expenditure. Now there is greater emphasis on building capabilities, adaption, mitigation and preparedness.
Mitigation Efforts:
1. National disaster mitigation fund: As part of the National Disaster Management Plan, 2016, the government has agreed to establish such a fund to implement a May 2016 Supreme Court Judgement.
2. National disaster Risk Index: This is developed jointly by MHA and UNDP. It covers 640 districts and all states, including UTs, and maps dangers and weaknesses, including economic vulnerabilities.
3. Satellite support: ISRO has created the IRNSS and GAGAN systems, which can be useful in disaster response.
4. E-course on Vulnerability Atlas of India: Developed by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs
(MoHUA). It is a one-of-a-kind course that raises awareness and understanding of natural hazards, assists in identifying places with high sensitivity to various hazards.
Preparedness Efforts:
1. Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI)- aiming to promote the resilience of new and existing infrastructure systems to climate and disaster risks in support of sustainable development.
2. PM CARES Fund- dedicated fund with the primary objective of dealing with any kind of emergency or distress situation, like posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
3. National Disaster Management Guidelines 2014- updated from time to time to deal with disasters like guidelines for management of GLOFs, etc.
4. Disaster Resilient Development Programs- Smart Cities Mission, AMRUT and Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY).
The 1999 Odisha super cyclone claimed around 10,000 lives but recent cyclone Fani took 64 lives only which shows the increased resilience and preparedness in dealing with disasters. This shows a shift in policy makers' attitudes toward mitigation and preparedness, rather than response and recovery.