With the vision of "building a safer and more disaster-resilient India through a holistic, proactive, technology-driven, and sustainable development strategy that involves all stakeholders and fosters a culture of prevention, preparedness, and mitigation," the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), led by the Prime Minister of India, and the State Disaster Management Authorities (SDMAs), stand as the pinnacle structure for disaster management in the country at the state and district levels.
The Government of India authorized the creation of the NDMA on December 23, 2005. The NDMA is responsible for developing disaster management policies, plans, and guidelines. India hopes to foster an ethos of prevention, mitigation, preparedness, and response.
This paper aims to investigates India, its natural disasters and how response or warning system facilitate a strategy to inform citizens.
NDMA's capacity building surrounds the Incident Response System (IRS), Civil Defence, Mock Exercise, Trauma Centre, and Psycho-Social Care, according to a source. by the continuous and joint efforts of all government departments, non-governmental organizations, and people's engagement. By implementing a technologically driven, proactive variety of hazards, and a multi-sectoral strategy for creating a safer, disaster-resistant, and adaptive India, this goal can be achieved.
With a population of 142.86 crores distributed across 29.7 lakh square kilometers, the country is prone to human-made hazards such as chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear. On contrast, natural hazards are cyclones, tsunamis, heat waves, landslides, urban floods, floods, and earthquakes.
Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry fall under State Disaster Management Authorities (SDMAs).
Mausam, or 'weather, is monitored by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) under the Ministry of Earth Sciences established on January 15, 1875. IMD has gradually extended its infrastructure for meteorological observations, communications, forecasting, and weather services while also experiencing scientific growth.
IMD focuses on detecting earthquakes, providing statistical information, and warnings about harmful adverse weather conditions such as tropical cyclones, heat waves, cold waves, heavy rain, dust storms, and more.
Business Insider through an article, contributes to the numerous natural disasters of 2021: the Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Maharashtra floods; the cyclones Tauktae, Yaas, and Gulab; and the Assam earthquake that caused significant havoc, one of the possibilities being an extreme change in weather conditions. However, some of the well-known cases were the Gujarat earthquake of 2001, the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, and the Kerala floods of 2018.
The question arises, is India fully equipped with the warning system?
Back in 2021, an article by The Indian Express expressed concerns about how IMD and NDMA had started to design a joint A warning protocol would be sent before to any extreme weather events such as lightning, thunderstorms, etc., or heavy rain in a locality. The article primarily focused on how lightning disasters contributed to the mortality rate. Furthermore, "These alerts will be hyper-localized and targeted for a specific village, helping the local administration and people to stay prepared."
On August 17, 2023, around 1:30 pm, pan-India emergency alert system testing was done, with a sample text message sent to users. The Press Trust of India (PTI) shared a tweet about the alert message received by users. This message was received by Android users only and headlined Emergency Alert: Severe'. Additionally, there was a loud beep and flash that users reported, according to Business Line and Digit. These announcements can alert people to natural disasters and extreme weather conditions.
News 9 Live stated, Earlier this month, NDMA was devising to launch an All India Integrated Alert System based on the Common Alert Protocol (CAP). Developed by the Center for the Development of Telecommunications (C-DOT) for practical catastrophe management, a warning protocol has been created. CAP follows a procedure of details that includes the details of the hazard, including intensity, continuance, zone of impact, action to be taken, etc.
With the new alert warning system, India's combat of natural or human-made hazards will be more strategic and oriented as well as informative.
Edited by Whitney Edna Ibe
Share This Post On
0 comments
Leave a comment
You need to login to leave a comment. Log-in
