PM Modi unveil India’s first disaster management plan

On the February 10th, In the scrim of the Uttarakhand disaster, the Energy Resources Institute, Delhi, organized a summit, the World Sustainable Development Summit 2021, which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In the conference, Modi mentioned, “We must enhance our disaster management capabilities. This will improve our human resources as well as technology”. Therefore, the enhancement of the disaster management capabilities was one of the major areas which needed attention and this could only be done with the help of human resources development and technology. For this, he said, “The road to fighting climate change is through climate justice and the route of climate justice is in the principle of being large-hearted.”
Further, to tackle national disasters, a plan is revealed by the National Disaster Management Plan (NDMP). The plan aims to reduce the disaster in the country and also reduce the loss of lives and assets during calamities or disasters. For instance, on February 7th, India had seen a landslide causing a flood in Chamoli, Uttarakhand, in which around 30 people lost their lives, two hydropower plants got ruined and caused damage to livestock and property. These types of changes in the environment and the natural disaster majorly impact the lives of poor people. However, the NDMP plan provides a structure to deal with the disaster management cycle including prevention, mitigation, response, and recovery, and also mentioned the duties of the governments of the state, center, and village. The plan has mentioned 15 disasters and gave responsibilities to the government for the management and mitigation. For instance, in disasters such as tsunami, landslides, or cyclone, the ministry of Earth Sciences would be responsible for disaster management. The ministry of Earth Sciences will take care of the biological disaster and it will deal with the urban floods. This government initiative will mitigate the problems and also help to fight disasters.
Apart from it, in India, around one-fourth of its geographical area was under forest cover, which has an installing capacity of around 38% of electrical energy through non-fossil sources that includes nuclear power and large hydropower projects. Modi also mentioned about India’s target to install infrastructure for 450,000 MW of renewable energy by 2030 in the summit.