Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for giving me this opportunity to address this vital issue which is of great concern to all of us in our country.

          My good friend, the hon. Member from Odisha, had already given us the details of how vulnerable the nation is to natural disasters. I will not repeat the details that he had provided. But I used to be the Convener of the Parliamentary Forum on Disaster Management during the 15^th Lok Sabha. I must say that a lot of this has become sadly too familiar.      

          We had a National Disaster Management Authority, but it has been dismantled. Instead of Disaster Management Authority, what we now have is Disastrous Mismanagement without authority!

          What has happened is that the NDMA simply failed to fulfill its purpose or its promise in all the disaster situations listed in today’s Order Paper – Jammu & Kashmir, North-East, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh. As we have been reminded, the Parliament here passed the National Disaster Management Act in 2005, creating the NDMA, under the Prime Minister - no less – who is the Chairman, and the National Executive Committee developed a national policy on disaster management which was approved in 2009. The NDMA was supposed to work in coordination with various State Disaster Management Authorities. But so far, there is very little evidence of this. Indeed, several of the States have not yet even submitted their disaster management plans.

          While the nation awaits the promised ‘Achche din’, ‘bure din’ came to the NDMA because the Government made it headless by asking for the resignation of the Vice-Chairman and other senior members, all in June. We are now in the beginning of December. So, six months later, we still have no replacements. The Government made absolutely no appointments to fill them, leaving the body completely headless, and the result is that the necessary warnings – for example, indicating the unexpected rise of the levels of the Jhelum River, in the case of Kashmir, signaling the onset of a disaster in the Kashmir Valley – were simply not issued. There was no one to issue them.

We had the same problem with the National Disaster Relief Force, which was also set up by the 2005-Act.  A permanent DG of the NDRF was appointed only yesterday.

 Now, where is the decisive Government that we were promised when it comes to filling up much needed vacancies!  The irony is that the Indian Meteorological Department, the Indian Space Research Organisation, so many other agencies have all developed early warning systems.  The NDMA is supposed to, without delay, disseminate this information from these various agencies to the public and treat every warning with the urgency that it requires. But the NDMA, for all  practical purposes under this Government does not exist.  There is a dire need to fill the vacant positions at the earliest.

          We have seen, Mr. Chairman, there is a chronic problem in this Government of dismantling functioning institutions without having alternatives ready; whether it is the Planning Commission, the National Innovation Council or the NDMA.  What do we see?  These have been decapitated and left rudderless like chickens with their heads cut off without any sense of purpose or direction.  No wonder, we do not even have a National Disaster Management Action Plan.

          Days before the Kashmir floods, a few local institutes studying weather conditions in the valley recorded an unexpected rise in the level of the Jhelum.  The Officers of the State Flood Control Department had warned the authorities that the river was flowing 14 feet above the danger mark at Sangam in South Kashmir but they were unable to get a response from the Central or the State Government.  Where was the Central Government to give the response?  Warnings were issued by two other Central Water Commission Stations.  They were also ignored.  The Central Water Commission provides flood forecasting services but they have to be heeded.  There must be a mechanism to take them and convey them urgently to the States.  The State, of course, in the case of Kashmir had ample time to evacuate people from low lying areas.  They could have called for assistance of Special Response Team from the Centre.  The Central Government could have also alerted the State.  But did any of this happen?  No, Sir, it did not.  And, there was no effective response mechanism deployed at the beginning of the crisis.  What followed was uncontrollable destruction, the loss of life and property which cannot be compensated, which, of course, will take a whole substantial amount of time to recover from and rebuild.

          The figures are painful, Mr. Chairman; a loss of 282 human lives in Kashmir, over 61,000 cattle, six-and-a-half lakh hectares of cropped area, two-and-a-half lakh houses.  Thousands have been left homeless.  Property worth one lakh crore, a trillion rupees, has been destroyed.  Twelve lakh people and 2000 villages were also affected by the floods in Assam. Floods in Odisha, thanks to Cyclone Hudhud, affected over 10 lakh people.  So, we have a huge scale of problem on our hands.  Our response at the Central Government level must also be worthy of this kind of a challenge.

          The National Disaster Response Force, which is supposed to be actually managed and controlled by the NDMA, has now been reporting directly to the Ministry of Home Affairs, because there is no NDMA I suppose.  Different departments and Ministries of the Central Government were undertaking their own relief operations in Kashmir.  And, frankly, there was no Central Authority to coordinate them.  The Central Government and the State Government were themselves not coordinating with each other and in the absence of any nodal agency the response was also slower than it needs to have been. 

          As usual, what we do is we turn to our Armed Forces.  Whenever the civilian Government fails, we always send in the Army.  So, they efficiently did their job.  They conducted search and rescue operations.  They distributed food, water, medicines amongst marooned survivors.  But this is not supposed to be the Army’s job.  They are there to defend our borders.  What about the Government’s own capacity for disaster management?  What about the Act of this Parliament, Mr. Chairman, which we have actually passed for this purpose? 

There is no urgency in arranging the appointment of any of the vacancies unnecessarily created by the Government.  The Government’s motto seems to be ‘dismiss in haste but fill the posts at leisure’. 

The situation would have been very different if we had a well led and fully staffed NDMA which could have issued a warning and specific instructions to the Jammu and Kashmir State Disaster Management Authority for preparing and evacuating the residents living in and around the disaster prone area.  The fact is that the Central Government may well blame the State Government and the State Government may well blame the Central Government, but there is no question that in our system the Central Government has a responsibility to step in where the state Government has failed.  This did not happen.  And the fact is it had not happened already at the preparedness stage, where it is supposed to happen under the provisions of the Act of Parliament.

We have already been hearing about the Central Government’s assistance.  The Figures have already been given by the hon. Member from Odisha. But let me say that the relief and immediate rehabilitation measures alone are essentially provided for. There is no real serious measure for compensation.  You need a special package, as our Government gave to Uttarakhand when that tragedy happened. The reason for that is very simple that the norms for disaster relief are simply not adequate.  We know the Prime Minister has announced an ex gratia assistance of Rs.2 lakh each to the next of kin of the deceased and Rs.50,000 each to the injured under the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund.  But first of all, the amounts are very modest given the scale of the loss.  Secondly, there is not even an agreed list of the beneficiaries who should be compensated.   There has been severe negligence on the part of the Government.  We have just seen an interview in the newspapers yesterday by the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir saying that each house needs, at least, Rs.10 lakh but the Government has given him only Rs.70000 per house.  Now obviously you cannot build a house anywhere for Rs.70000, let alone in Kashmir. 

          So, this predictable narrative, Mr. Chairman, is what we have been seeing. Calamity occurs, there is lack of warning; there is lack of prevention; there is lack of preparation; and there is mostly avoidable death, if not destruction, and then the establishment’s first response is that they have announced  a relief amount to the families of the victims and that too, too small an amount.  The message to the Government very simply is that prevention is better than compensation.  Effective action to save lives is better than trying to re-build after disasters. 

Now let me stress that there are very many things that the Central Government should be doing.  I am glad that one of the earlier speakers has also pointed out specific measures that could be taken.  Even the C&AG has done a report in 2013 about various disaster-specific measures.  The Government seems to have shown no indication of having digested this.  We realise, for example, that the Indian Meteorological Department, which is regulated by the Ministry of Earth Sciences in the Central Government, has not prepared a disaster management and mitigation plan for earthquakes.  Even in Kashmir we had an earthquake in 2013. There are about 4720 reservoirs and barrages in our country and the Central Water Commission provides forecasts for only 28.  There are 4700 for which there are no forecasts.  

Coming to modernisation of weather forecasting  equipment, we have all the software and all these computers.   We are talking about making super computers, yet  what is our capacity for weather forecasting?  Maybe it is at the national level but where do we have it at the State levels?  Even the hazard maps that are supposed to be drawn for earthquakes, landslides, cyclones, Tsunami, floods, etc. they are incomplete or unavailable.  Without these maps, no State Government can be in a position to even identify the high risk areas let alone actually do anything about it. 

Let me repeat to the Central Government, the NDMA needs strengthening and not weakening.  Since its inception, it has spent Rs.1300 crore.  You are spending Rs.40 crore a year just on maintaining the NDMA but you are giving them no authority or giving them no heads or giving them no work.  The fact is that only 10 per cent of the NDMA’s on-going projects have been completed.  It has very limited powers over the State Governments.  So, its guidelines never get implemented.  On top of that, what do we see? We have disagreement with all these others.  The NDMA has one set of views.  The NDRF has another set of views.   Now the National Informatics Centre comes in.  They have not been able to agree on procuring satellite phones for establishing the disaster communication network which is why there were no communications in Kashmir immediately after floods started.

Now on top of that, there are the State Disaster Response Funds which again have been mentioned earlier in the debate.  Many States have not appropriately utilised the Rs.33580 crore which have been given for State Disaster Response Funds by the UPA Government for the period 2010-2015.  The Ministry of Home Affairs apparently has not been able to keep check on utilisation of these funds.  There are no official figures on how they have been utilised.  There has been a fairly negligent attitude at all levels towards disaster management.  The funds have been earmarked but the policy has not been implemented.  The Act has not been implemented.  Now I even see Nirmala Sitharamanji there and she could encourage private sector to get involved in helping with disaster management through the CSR where they are supposed to give two per cent for various developmental activities.  There has been no particular campaign to encourage the private sector to contribute to disaster management and indeed their contributions are practically non-existent.  

There is no comprehensive plan from the Ministry of Home Affairs.  I look at the MoS who is a very competent and well regarded figure.  We need to see a comprehensive plan coming from his Ministry for disaster management.  The MHA should keep a record on the utilisation of funds and unspent balances of the States.  Mr. Rijiju, you do not have one yet. That has to be done.

We have to accept that temporary plans are not a solution. Giving relief is not an answer. It is reactive. Reactions are not enough. A comprehensive plan is also needed for understanding and checking our country’s preparedness for all kinds of disasters. We have talked today about floods and cyclones. We need to be prepared for nuclear and radiological disasters; forest fires and coastal erosion. In my constituency, practically every year we have extremely heavy tidal waves; we have extremely heavy rains and India loses territory because our beaches are washed away with coastal erosion. We can prepare for this. This has been happening for decades, but we have not got the preparations. Man made disasters also we are not prepared for. Now, may I suggest also to the Ministry of Home Affairs that apart from the strengthening the National Disaster Management Authority we should also establish district authorities to ensure that the district, the State and the Centre are all equally coordinated.

          Let me finally say that the NDMA must also ensure that the guidelines that it has issued should be followed by State Governments and Ministries and therefore, it must take the lead, it must be the central body to coordinate the Ministries to avoid duplication of efforts, provide regular training and capacity building and involve the NGOs, the civil society create a Statesociety partnership for disaster management as well as  to spread awareness. We have all the money that the Government spends on advertising various things, we need to have awareness in the public about what they should do in the event of disaster and to prevent disaster.

          The fact is that we can, with better systems, handle natural disasters and calamities better. It has been done before. We all remember how the late Rajiv Gandhi handled the drought of 1987 without a single person losing his life. If there is a plan, if there is a system in place, there is leadership, these things can be done.

The message is clear. This is a Central Government responsibility. Give us the decisive action you have promised. Appoint an NDMA, empower it, pursue the States, finalise an action plan and set up systems. Remember, far too many people in our country find it impossible to beg, borrow or raise money to treat a person in the family who is sick and dying, but the moment he dies, everybody comes for the funeral. Now, that is not what the Government should be doing. The Government’s job is to prevent the sickness, to prevent the affliction, not to attend the funeral. We have had too many funerals and disasters in our country. I say it to the Government – please do your job so as to reduce the number of funerals and to ensure that calamity in our country does not always have to mean tragedy.

          Thank you.