Disaster Management in India: Challenges and Strategies

Book excerpt: This book – “Disaster Management in India: Challenges and Strategies” - provides a practical and realistic understanding of the evolving status of disaster management in India. The book discusses techno-legal systems for disaster management and their real-life effectiveness based upon the author’s own professional experience as well as available literature including studies, reviews and audits reports.A case study of the 2001 Bhuj Earthquake conducted by the author is at the nucleus of the book and provides a clear understanding on how interdependent sub-systems (social, organisational, infrastructure) can fail during sever incidents, and the consequences thereof.Lack of resources, lack of coordination, and poor communication are endemic to severely damaged disaster environments like the 2001 Bhuj earthquake and are very commonly seen across the world. What is more important for the future is that new methods are being evolved that overcome the potential risks posed by such initial conditions for improving organizational performance. Lessons from the 2001 Bhuj earthquake highlighted in this book are still relevant and provide directions for well-designed future interventions.The book critically examines performance status of disaster management in the post DM Act 2005 period and identifies many relevant issues and challenges – including development of effective institutions for disaster risk management.At the end, the book proposes intervention strategies for strengthening and improving disaster management systems keeping in mind the latest developments and best-practices suited to Indian conditions. Drawing on the author’s decades of experience both in the domains of disaster management and technology, the book provides tips on - Emergency Operations Center design and development; Media integration into DM, emergency Resources Management systems development and Crowd management.