Opinion: Steering India safely through calamities

Through consistent efforts, the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi established an efficient decision-making system and enhanced technological infrastructure, resulting in minimal casualties and injuries during severe cyclones. It demonstrates the government's commitment to safety and disaster management, says BJP National Spokesperson Prem Shukla

Cyclone 'Biparjoy' wreaked havoc after making landfall. With winds gusting up to 150 Kmph the most critically affected region remains the Kutch region of Gujarat. On average five to six tropical cyclones form every year out of which two to three have a high probability of turning severe. Such natural disasters cause major devastation of life and property. However, one can see how the Narendra Modi government is committed to securing lives and providing the required help/necessities to people affected by such calamities as cyclones, earthquakes and floods. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his monthly radio address “Mann ki Baat’s” latest episode, stated that the strength of disaster management that India has developed over the years has become an “example”. 

PM Narendra Modi hailed the people of Kutch for facing Cyclone Biparjoy with 'full courage and preparedness' and said "I am confident that people of Kutch, who faced earthquake disaster decades ago, will once again recover from Cyclone Biparjoy". Union Home Minister Amit Shah, in a statement on 17 June, said: "We can express satisfaction that nobody has died in the cyclone that made landfall and wind speed of 140 km/h." He further termed it as a 'major achievement'. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi continuously guided the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Gujarat government and all government agencies, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said, adding that to come out of this disaster with minimum damage is a great example of effective teamwork. With advance planning and preparation by the state government and central agencies, the damage to human lives, livestock and property was minimised, Shah said, praising the state government's 'Zero Casualty Approach'. 

The 'Zero Casualty Approach' is not limited to natural calamities, as we saw the immediate rescue of our citizens in war-bound regions, and the effective planning and execution during the pandemic. A major difference arises in the approach of the government, The earlier governments' approach was to provide relief after the disaster; today the approach is that of zero casualty due to pre-disaster preparation. There have been various improvements in our technological implementation that have allowed this to be possible. Let us have a look at some crucial ones.

Under the prudent leadership of Prime Minister Modi and the efficient execution of Home Minister Amit Shah, many schemes were implemented for the betterment of the citizens. Some decisions include the early warning and pre-preparation, National Disaster Management Plan, 'pre-deployment' of response forces, disaster fund distribution, community-based disaster management and disaster risk reduction, to name a few.

The funds deployed under disaster fund distribution via the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have tripled in the 2014-15 to 2022-23 timeline when compared to the previous decade. 

The SDRF deployed Rs 35,858 crore in the time period of 2005-06 to 2013-14 (9 years) versus Rs 1,07,940 crore in 2014-15 to 2022-23 period (3 times increase). Similarly, the NDRF deployed Rs 25,036 crore in the 2005-06 to 2014-15 period versus Rs 76,709 crore in 2014-15 to 2022-23 period (3 times increment). 

Further, the NDRF has been transformed under the current government, there is 'Active Availability' of the NDRF force with deployment in 26 states under the policy of 'pre-deployment'. Their teams are working as regional response centres in 28 cities of the country. The presence and transport of NDRF teams have been streamlined.

Home Minister Amit Shah, in February 2021, formed the National Disaster Mitigation Fund (NDMF) and Rs 13,693 crore was allocated under the NDMF. Further Rs 32,031 crore were allocated under State Disaster Mitigation Fund (SDMF).

Prime Minister Modi launched the National Disaster Management Plan (NDMP). The roles and responsibilities have also been prescribed in a matrix format by vertical and horizontal integration between all the agencies and departments that are related to disaster management.

Another huge step that the central government has taken is proactively sending Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT). Now, right after the occurrence of a natural calamity and without waiting for any official communication of the state government, the IMCT is being sent. In the last 4 years itself, 73 IMCT teams have been sent to various states and deployed within 10 days of the disaster.

An 'Aapda Mitra Yojana' has been implemented in 350 multi-hazard disaster-prone districts. The aim of the scheme is to train more than 1 lakh youth volunteers, all of whom would be given life insurance by the government. A total of Rs 369.41 crore has been deployed under this scheme already. Further, Home Minister Amit Shah announced Rs 354 crore in March 2021 under Common Alerting Protocol (CAP). The main target of CAP is to provide geo-based instant alerts regarding disasters through mobile phones.

These policies have brought great success in disaster management, and a lot of it can be attributed to a strong early warning and 1st responder system, due to which people have advanced intimation regarding the disaster and are taken to a safe place. Due to such tremendous efforts taken by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the loss of life and property due to cyclones has come down by about 98%. 

In a similar trend, there has been a significant reduction in heat wave-related mortality. These were some of the many crucial schemes introduced by the government now let us have a look at how our technical prowess has evolved enormously to aid our citizens during the difficult time of calamity.

Twenty new Doppler weather radars have been commissioned in the country during the 2014-23 period a number which has more than doubled than in the previous governance. These provide important information on severe weather events occurring over the region and support disaster management authorities.

The 'high-performance computing' facility is augmented to provide world-class weather and climate services by giving high-resolution weather and coupled climate modelling. This facility is a very recent addition and was ordered in April 2023. Such high-resolution ensembles, global/region models and satellite data assimilation have been developed. Due to such developments, there has been about 50 per cent improvement in forecast accuracy of severe weather events like heavy rainfall, fog, heat/cold waves and thunderstorm in recent five years.

Accurate and timely prediction of tropical cyclones, combined with fieldwork by disaster management agencies, has helped the government in saving the lives of thousands of people. Not only that but the average track forecast error has been reduced from 93 km to 74 km in 24 hour forecast and from 201 km to 153 km in 72 hour forecast during the period of 2014-2022 respectively.

There have been huge technological upgrades such as; High Wind Speed Recorders have almost doubled from 19 to 35. There were ‘Zero’ 'Agro Automatic Weather Stations” pre- 2014 there are 200 as of now. Runway Visual Ranges (RVR) have increased more than 5 times from 20 pre-2014 to 113 as of now. 

Digital Current Weather Systems at airports have increased threefold from 29 to 69. Heliport Weather Observing Systems (HAWOS) have gone from 0 pre-2014 to six currently. The number of Geostationary satellites has doubled. Further, Block-Level weather forecast and 'Agrometeorological Advisory Service' (AAS) started in 2018 which covered the entire country by 2022. The impact of the AAS is huge as Gramin Krishi Mausam Seva (GKMS) scheme has expanded from 130 districts in 2014 to 329 districts in 2023. 

Impact-based severe weather forecast for agriculture started in 2020. Weather forecasting and severe weather forecasting stations were available in 300 cities. In 2014, the number has more than tripled to 1070 cities. Early warnings for Tropical cyclones were given 3 days in advance by 2014, now they are given 5 days in advance increasing the preparation time period. 

Forecast accuracy would be given 1 day prior; now we can provide information up to 5 days earlier. Heatwave forecast accuracy has increased from 67 per cent to 100 per cent in the 24-hour lead period, from 50 per cent to 95 per cent in the 48-hour lead period and from 27 per cent to 90 per cent in the 72-hour lead period. 

Thunderstorms and lightning warnings which could be issued a maximum of 3 days in advance can be issued now 5 days prior. Further, they were issued at the sub-division level only, now they are issued at District and Station levels too and are updated twice a day. Accuracy in thunderstorm nowcast has improved significantly during recent years. 

The probability of detection of for hourly thunderstorm forecast is now 0.86 compared to 0.50 as of 2017. There is so much staggering evidence available about the increased awareness and responsibility of the government towards its citizens in difficult times like natural calamities. 

The number of casualties and damage to property has decreased by a humongous amount. The main difference can be observed in the approach itself of how to handle these calamities. Before the approach was to help the citizens that were caught up in these calamities, however now the government does its level best to detect such calamities so well in advance and improve the transportation and communication services to such an efficient level that no citizen is caught up in these calamities. 

Various new prevention departments have been set up in as many districts as possible and even volunteers are being actively trained to help people in such dire situations. Trying to save as many people as possible and to avoid them being affected by such calamities is a process and the process has definitely been expeditious in the past 9 years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s regime paved the way for their continuous efforts to create a system which is not only efficient at decision-making in the Centre but has also improved the technological infrastructure to such a level where, despite the storm reaching devastating levels, there was no casualty due to the cyclone, further even the number of injurious people were few. This was possible due to the multi-level planning, efficient working and spectacular use of available technological methods used for prediction and communication.

The author is National Spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Views expressed are personal