Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday announced three major disaster management schemes of over Rs 8,000 crore for the country, including expansion and modernization of fire services across States at a cost of Rs 5,000 crore.
Amit Shah made the announcement at a meeting of ministers of disaster management of states and Union Territories, called to discuss strengthening the disaster risk reduction system in the country and to make India disaster resilient.
Chairing the meeting, he said a Rs 2,500-crore project will be launched to reduce the risk of urban flooding in the seven most populous metros – Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune.
There will be a Rs 825 crore National Landslide Risk Mitigation Project for Landslide Mitigation in 17 States and Union Territories, he said.
He said that the endeavour should be that not a single person’s life is lost due to disaster, and all states have made efforts towards achieving this goal in the last five years.
The home minister said discussions at the meeting were essential for formulating and revising policies at the national level. The Centre and the States have achieved many milestones in the last nine years, but there can be no reason for complacency.
He said that the nature of the disasters has changed and their frequency and intensity has also increased, and for this reason preparedness to deal with them needs to be sharpened and broadened. Many new disasters are being encountered at various places, he said.
Post 2004, he said, after extensive discussions on disaster management at the national level, a collective responsibility and response mechanism was developed at the centre and state level.
During the Covid-19 pandemic period, the Centre and the States, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, successfully tackled the worst pandemic of the century. At that difficult time, the Central government, the States and the public set an excellent example to the world of fighting together on every front.
The government provided more than 220 crore free Corona vaccines, arranged food for crores of poor people, brought back lakhs of labourers to their hometowns and made arrangements to address their concerns through DBT.
He said till a few years back, the approach towards disaster was reactionary and relief-centric. During the last nine years, with collective hard work and dedication, a new approach of early warning system, prevention, mitigation and preparedness-based disaster management has been implemented.
He said the Modi Government has set a target of raising around one lakh youth volunteers in 350 high-risk disaster prone districts. Shah said the Centre has made proactive efforts to help the states during the last four years by sending IMCT teams 73 times within a time frame of just 10 days.
He said that comparing the nine years from 2005-06 to 2013-14 with 2014-15 to 2022-23, the fund of Rs 35,858 crore allocated to State Disaster Response Forces has almost tripled to Rs 1,04,704 crore.
In addition, the release of funds from National Disaster Response Force has increased by nearly three times from Rs 25,000 crores to Rs 77,000 crores. He said that due to proactive approach, Centre and States have increased budgetary provision in the areas of disaster risk reduction and post-disaster relief and rehabilitation.
He said that in 2021, the National Disaster Mitigation Fund was constituted under the Central Government with Rs 16,700 crore and under the State Disaster Mitigation Fund Rs 32,000 crore has been kept for mitigation activities.
The Home Minister said the National Disaster Management Authority has visited seven power plant sites across the states where nuclear power plants are coming up and strict protocols have been sent to the states for rescuing people in case of any emergency.
He told the States’ ministers to make it their priority and before a nuclear power plant becomes active, they should make all necessary arrangements related to disaster management.