Declare Cold Wave As Disaster
By S. Mohammed Irshad
25 January, 2012
Countercurrents.org
Cold Wave takes the lives of many. The people who lost the lives are homeless Citizens of India. This is accepted as a ‘seasonal issue' of homeless migrant workers in the capital city Their relatives are not eligible for any compensation and no public panic. The people who died were sleeping under the open skies and exposed to extreme weather. They could not withstand the cold due to ill health and lack of shelter. Those who are fighting cold wave are also needed to be supported. The problems of these shelter less citizens can't be solved only by supplying woollen cloths and temporary shelters. Supplying woollen clothes and temporary shelter offer a temporary support. There is a miss match between demand and supply of such emergency support. This is evident from the rising death toll due to extreme weather across the country. This demand supply gap should be reduced. The major cause of death is the lack of institutional interventions. There is no institutional support exists in our country to bring the problems of shelterless and homeless. We have, Slum Rehabilitation Act-1995, JNNURM and Valmeki Ambedakar Awas Jojana for urban slum dwellers. However, those who are living under open sky during extreme winter are not covered by any institutional support system.
What should do?
Cold Wave should be declared as a disaster to ensure at least bare minimum support to save lives. The people are exposed to extreme weather just because of being homeless. There are structural causes behind homeless and that may not be solved just because of being eligible for a beneficiary of a ‘disaster'. Declaring cold wave as natural disaster would open multiple institutional and financial options to offer helps from medical care to permanent shelter.
There are no legal hurdles ahead of declaring cold wave as a disaster. The disaster management act -2005. The act defines disaster as....
“Disaster means a catastrophe, mishap, calamity or grave occurrence in any area, arising from natural or man made causes, or by accident or negligence, which results in substantial loss of life or human sufferings or damage to, and destruction of property or damage to, or degradation of, environment, and is of such a nature or magnitude as to be beyond the coping capacity of the community of the affected area” ( Disaster Management Act 2005:p2).
According to the act, improving the standard of living of the people who are exposed to grave occurrence is part of the disaster management, hence, declaring Cold Wave as a disaster is hundred percent justifiable under the provisions of Disaster Management Act. The probable positive impact would be, spending money under Disaster Response Fund and extend the scope of current urban development programmes in line with the needs of homeless in the cities.
Funding options and bottlenecks
Section 46 (1) and section 48 (1) of DM act insists on National Disaster Response Fund at the national level and State Disaster Response Fund at the state level and District Disaster Mitigation Fund at the district level. National Disaster Mitigation Fund spends by national agency and there are some guidelines for spending state disaster response fund According to the DM Act, the SDRF shall be used only for meeting the expenditure for providing immediate relief to the victims of cyclone, drought, earthquake, fire, flood, tsunami, hailstorm, landslide, avalanche, cloud burst and pest attack (Guidelines on Constitution and Administration of the state disaster response fund and national disaster response fund). The guidelines for utilising Calamity Relief Fund (CRF) also refer the same incidents as calamity and eligible for financial support from CRF.
Declaring cold wave as a disaster would permit the state governments to spend money already allocated to the stated by thirteenth finance commission. The table shows the money with the state government under SDRF. Declaring cold wave as a disaster under DM –Act would be a novel step towards ensuring institutional support to vulnerable sections.
Sl No |
Thirteenth Finance Commission's year wise allocation of State Disaster Response Fund. Rs in Crore |
|||||
1 |
2010-11 |
2011-12 |
2012-13 |
2013-14 |
2014-15 |
Total |
2 |
6077.3 |
6381.18 |
6700.22 |
7035.22 |
7387.01 |
33580.93 |
S. Mohammed Irshad, Assistant Professor, Jamsetji Tata Centre for Disaster Management Tata Institute of Social Science ,Malatil and Jal A.D. Naoroji (New) Campus, Sion-Trombay Road , P.O.Box 8313, Deonar, Mumbai-400 088 E-Mail: [email protected], [email protected]
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