Yasir Wani
There is no doubt in the fact that Kashmir is highly vulnerable to disasters beginning from every year’s snowstorms to intermittently occurring floods and earthquakes. The geo-climatic conditions as well as socio-economic vulnerability makes it one of the most disaster prone territory in the world, therefore paving its way to widespread human, material or environmental losses. No doubt the disasters are natural in classification, but the ignorance of government and the role of people in causing more devastation acts as an insult to injury.
The recently occurred catastrophe in the form of floods is an eye opener to all of us as was the earth quack of 2005. But unfortunately we remained sleeping from 2005 and now in 2014 if we will fell asleep this time also our future can be much worse. The government was neither prepared nor equipped to tackle the current natural calamity and the people looted the river channels by encroachments, illegal plantations, constructions et al and therefore shrinking the channels and taking them at the brink of extinction.
There are mainly three major basics that need to be undertaken for effective disaster management. Though all the three things are missing in Kashmir, but better late than never! we can employ them as soon as possible so as to be safe in future. These are Preparation (before the disaster), Response (during the disaster) and Relief (after the disaster).
‘DisasterPreparation’ includes measures that guarantee that people are aware of and are equipped for any disaster andall those means which are needed to handleduring the calamity can be powerfullydeployed. Public, business, volunteer and individual preparedness is critical to support in diminishing the impact of an event on the community and to ensure effective and timely operational response in the event of a disaster.
Organizations with disaster management duties must have suitability in terms of staffing, planning, training, equipment, capacity, readiness, sustainability, logistics and command and control to support disaster response and relief, with negligibleinterruption. It involves awareness, participation and engagement of individuals to enhance individual and community resilience and empowerment. It involves understanding of and planning for catastrophic events and to boost community volunteer capability.
‘Disaster response’includes the activities taken during and immediately after an event to certify that its effects are minimized. This activityis undertaken during disaster operations. The significance of a timely, sufficiently resourced and coordinated approach to disaster response is vital. This timely, coordinated tactic requires the clear definition of roles and responsibilities of those involved in response activities.Here an event management system needs to be implemented that enables all organizations to work in a coordinated manner during disaster operations. It also requires implementing an effective communication strategy that boosts public warning and information.
Lastly it is the ‘Disaster Relief’ that plays its sociable role in the provision of immediate shelter, life support and human needs to those that are affected by the disaster. Disaster relief activities are undertaken during as well as after disaster operations. It is the synchronized process of supporting affected societies in the rebuilding of the physical setup, restoration of the environment and of the economy, and an overall support to those who got affected by the disaster.
So in order to be innocuous from the curse of future disasters, the government in particular needs to keep these three basics at the back of their mind while formulating a strategy for coping up with the future non timely disasters. Also they should make it sure that the budget of the next year should include a proper share for disaster management, so that the above framework is practically possible.
(The author is an MBA from University of Kashmir)
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