Shake off the sloth

Last Saturday's decision to set up a permanent disaster management committee at the Centre sounds impressive. However, it appears to have ...

Last Saturday8217;s decision to set up a permanent disaster management committee at the Centre sounds impressive. However, it appears to have been thought up under pressure of mounting public anger in Gujarat over the government8217;s incompetence. Many government committees have taken birth in such circumstances and achieved little apart from allowing politicians to feel they are being useful and providing new jobs for bureaucrats and sarkari experts. The fact that the need for effective and specialised responses to major crises is recognised is a welcome development. This country is not financially, technologically and organisationally geared for rapid action in a disaster. As the Gujarat government now acknowledges itself, the official response to the quake has been painfully slow and muddled. But it is not obvious the new committee at the Centre will fill the gap. It will turn out to be one more expensive monument to insincerity unless its functions are spelled out and mesh with those of state governments.

Whether it was the cyclone in Orissa last year or the cave-in in a Dhanbad coal mine last week, state governments and local agencies prove to be inadequate launching pads for action. But states must assume disaster prevention and management responsibilities. The tendency to centralise operations and control must be checked. States and local bodies must develop their own emergency plans, organisations and assets. A national disaster committee coordinating state committees is a necessary concept but the first step is disaster preparedness at state level. There is also the question of how exactly the new entity fits into existing central government structures. A disaster management cell already exists which acts or more accurately fails to function as a resource for the Union cabinet8217;s crisis management group which, in turn, is not a standing committee but one assembled after the crisis occurs.

Events on and since January 26 show up starkly all the shortcomings in the system which disaster management planning must take into account. These should include, notably, the implementation of safe building regulations and insurance cover for lives and property only ten per cent of lives were insured in Kutch and failsafe communication systems between local administrations and state and central governments. Much of the delay in rescue and relief missions can be blamed on the fact that local administrations had never prepared for a catastrophe. And all has beencompounded by the failures of the political leadership which continue even now. More than 10 days after the quake, the numbers of dead and missing have not been properly estimated, no comprehensive survey has been undertaken of the number and condition of affected villages. This makes it impossible to mount a full-scale relief operation. Offers of assistance have been flowing in from all over the country, from other state governments and from private corporations. Any one of them or even teams of senior officials from other parts of Gujarat could carry out essential assessments on behalf of the overburdened local administration.