Disaster preparedness leaves much to be desired

The deluge in Kerala has opened up many debates related to the disaster vulnerability, preparedness to cope and the resilience after the disaster.

The “World Risk Report 2016” of the UN University has pointed out that while India may not be as exposed to natural disasters compared to most of the 171 countries it has analysed, it ranks poorly in preparedness to face natural hazards.

Though the vulnerability component of India (exposure index) is not that high (11.9 per cent), its lack of ability to cope with disasters is very high (80.2 percent).

In the preparedness index, naturally India lags behind developed nations, but unfortunately it lags behind all the BRICS nations, including the developing nations like Brazil and South Africa. The report appreciates Australia despite its high exposure to natural disasters.

In this context, the policymakers in Kerala who are talking about rebuilding a “new Kerala” should first of all assess the preparedness of the state and society to mitigate the disaster.

Unfortunately, the disaster-related literacy of our state is dismal. We, the citizens of “God’s own country” were in a mood of complacence. The policymakers of the state had not been accustomed to the technical details of the preparedness as they were to the indices of health and education. Often, the disasters were managed in a business-as-usual mode. “It won’t happen to us”, was the general mood.

But, the deluge has uprooted the “self-congratulating” attitudes of the social leadership. From the present experience, the preparedness and the readiness of the fishing society surprised the unprepared state administrative machinery. But for the readiness of the fishermen who braved the floods, the casualties would have been manifold.

Why the state was not prepared, with not even a self-assessment about its preparedness, remains an unanswered question. The dispute between the central government’s meteorological department, which is authorised to give the weather forecast, and the state administration which had to act accordingly, recurred even after the sad lessons we learned in the Ockhi disaster a few months ago.

In spite of the weaknesses in preparedness and response, Kerala has been thinking about the resilience in the quickest possible timeframe. But before we step into the resilience phase we have to take into account the researches related to flood disasters in the country.

Mr. Prakash Tripathi (Ambedkar University, Delhi) indicates that the “event count” in the flood disasters in the country rose from 82 to 343 between 1995-2005 and 2005-2015. This growth in numbers is much bigger than the growth we had in earlier decades. (See the graph).

It means that the new Kerala we are going to build must be prepared to face more frequent challenges of nature. The amateur way of listing “the dos and don’ts” will not help to face the new situation.

Based on the new flood disaster data available, all the 1,034 local governments (941 panchayats, 87 municipalities and 6 city corporations) must be classified. It is a fact that less than 300 local bodies bore the brunt of the calamity and hence the focus of restoration and rebuilding has to be on them. The “red, orange, yellow, green” colour code can be used to mark the level of probable flood vulnerability.

Then the billion dollar question arises: whether we are going to rebuild in the red zone again? Even if the construction in the red zone is inevitable,  the scientific structural designs must be properly imposed.  Compromises on such structural policies will make probable floods in future more disastrous.

The land use pattern of the people is definitely connected with the availability of the land, meaning the land ownership. Millions of acres in the midland have been kept as the cash-crop estates without land-ceiling limits. But the low-lying (flood-prone) paddy fields had to be converted for housing for the millions of nuclear families erupted in the last few decades and hence the pressure on the low lands.

In short, rebuilding Kerala is not that simple. The new generation has to have less flood-prone land to live. The state must enhance its preparedness at least up to the level of emerging economies. Platitudes are unnecessary and of course not sufficient.

(The author is CMP general secretary and former member, Planning Board)