India accords high importance to disaster risk reduction issues and has allocated US Dollars 29 billion for disaster risk mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery over five years (2021-25).

This was disclosed by Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Dr P K Mishra, head of the Indian delegation, during the Mid-term Review of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030) at the UN headquarters.

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Dr Mishra said disaster risk reduction issues are a central public policy issue in India. “We have significantly increased funding earmarked for disaster risk reduction,” he said.

“We have brought about landmark changes in our financing architecture to support the entire spectrum of disaster risk management needs – disaster risk mitigation, preparedness, response, recovery and reconstruction,” he said.

Dr Mishra said “Our state and local governments have access to about $6 billion for disaster risk mitigation over the five years (2021-2025). This is in addition to resource of $23 billion meant for preparedness, response and recovery.”

In just over a decade, he said, India has been able to reduce the loss of lives from cyclones to less than two per cent. India is now developing ambitious mitigation programmes to reduce the risk of losses from all hazards – Landslides, Glacial Lake Outburst Floods, Earthquakes, Forest Fire, Heat Waves, and Lightning.

He said India is working assiduously to improve access to early warning. A Common Alerting Protocol will be implemented which will integrate Alert Generating Agencies with Disaster Managers and Telecom Service Providers.

This will ensure dissemination of area specific alerts in regional languages to reach each one of the 1.3 billion citizens of the country, he said. “We applaud the UN Secretary General’s initiative on ‘Early Warning for All by 2027’. Our efforts will contribute to achieving the target set by this timely global initiative,” he said.

Under India’s presidency, G20 members have agreed to establish a Working Group on Disaster Risk Reduction. The five priorities for the group are early warning for all, resilient infrastructure, improved financing, systems and capacities for response and ‘build back better’, and ecosystem based approaches to disaster risk reduction will provide added impetus to the achievement of Sendai targets globally.

In addition, the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, presently co-led by India and the United States, is bringing about transformation in the way infrastructure systems are planned, designed, built and maintained in the 21st century, he said.

Infrastructure projects are long-term investments. If informed by solid risk assessments, and underpinned by good risk governance, these infrastructure investments can build long-term resilience, he said.

The meeting heard a moving account by a survivor of the recent tragic quake in Turkiye. Dr Mishra said India, following its age-old concept of the whole world is a family (vasudhaiva kutumbakam) extended immediate help to Turkiye and Syria by dispatching field hospitals and search & rescue teams as well as medical relief material.

India stands ready to join efforts to reduce disaster risks at home as well as everywhere on the planet in the spirit of the SDGs: “leave no one behind, leave no place behind, and leave no ecosystem behind,” he said.