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India: For all Odisha's success, post-disaster response in urban areas can improve
By Abhishek Tripathy
Fani has come and gone, and has left in its wake the realisation that disaster management in urban areas deserves our urgent attention. Bhubaneswar, the capital of Odisha, resembles a battlefield bereft of its green cover and foliage, arguably its crest jewel.
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There is no reason the disaster-preparedness model that has worked so well in rural and semi-urban areas shouldn’t work in the urban areas. If it doesn’t come to be, it will only be if the administration doesn’t intervene actively enough, with the right policy orientation, together with help from agencies like the Indian Red Cross Society.
An important part of this is disaster-resilient infrastructure. For example, recent ‘Smart City’ projects in Bhubaneswar such as the Smart Janpath, new traffic signals and sign-boards survived Fani with little damage to show for it. So the administration deserves to be appreciated for having identified such materials. Now, we need to keep using them, using them well, maintaining them, and making them more accessible to all the city’s residents.
Another item that needs to be on the agenda is safety audits of extant and upcoming high-rise buildings to ensure they are retrofit with adequate safeguards to minimise damage. For one, such buildings should reduce the amount of glass in their architecture. Officials must ensure private builders and contractors adhere to these rules as well.
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