National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction

The physiographic and climatic conditions in India make it one of the most disaster prone areas in the world. More than 50% of the country’s population lives in disaster prone areas and is vulnerable to natural calamities such as wind storms in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, earthquakes in the Himalayan region, floods during monsoons, and droughts in Western Rajasthan and Marathwada.  Government has set up a National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction to prepare a roadmap for all kind of disaster management and sustainable development and make India disaster resilient by 2030.

The salient features of National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction are as follows:

• It aims to finalise a strategy in coordination with state governments for disaster risk mitigation.
• To learn from its previous mistakes and prepare a layout in advance for its annual disaster management plans to make India disaster resilient by the year 2030.
• It promotes participatory decision making in disaster management.
• To promote active participation of non-governmental organisations, individuals & communities in framing of disaster management policy
• To work in accordance with the four priority themes of the Sendai framework viz. understanding disaster risk reduction, improving disaster risk governance, investing in disaster risk reduction, and disaster preparedness, and to fully achieve the target by 2030.

What has been done so far?

The government has already set up the early warning systems, cyclone shelters, saline embankments & disaster response force at most vulnerable areas in the country. It has already released the country’s first ever National Disaster Management Plan, thus, becoming the first country in the world to have a national plan and local strategy for disaster risk reduction. With all such achievements, India is one of the leading players in fulfilling the United Nations demand to contribute to disaster response and recovery efforts.