Updated disaster management law in the works in India

Experts welcome focus on data gathering, but some worry about red tape, funding

- Rohini Mohan

A new Disaster Management Bill tabled in India's Parliament last week aims to create a centralised database and empower expert bodies to better anticipate and respond to disasters at a time when extreme weather has killed hundreds and destroyed property across the country.

Climate experts have welcomed the focus on data gathering in the Bill that was introduced on Aug 1which updates a 2005 law and the proposal to have dedicated expert bodies at the local level make disaster risk mitigation plans, instead of generalist bureaucrats.

However, given India's past struggles with communicating well-intentioned disaster management policies to officials on the ground, some experts were sceptical about effective implementation of the new policy.

Never has such stodgy administrative policy meant so much to so many people.

The Bill was discussed in a week when at least 300 people died across the country in rain-related incidents.

The most catastrophic were landslides in the district of Wayanad, in the southern Indian state of Kerala, which swept two entire villages away and left 226 people dead.

In another incident, a dozen people died after a cloudburst in the hilly state of Himachal Pradesh ravaged highways and stranded more than 10,000 pilgrims.

As the Bill was being discussed, the national capital of Delhi came to a standstill amid heavy rain, with waterlogging reported just a few streets away from Parliament.

India suffered the third-highest number of natural disasters in the world between 2000 and 2019, after China and the United States.

Flooding kills 1,600 people on average every year in India, and damages crops, homes and public utilities.

Around 2.5 million people were internally displaced due to floods, storms, earthquakes and other disasters in 2022, and over half a million in 2023.