Disaster management in India

A look at India's level of preparedness in the face of a disaster: Prof Santosh Kumar of National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) says, “We need to shift focus from the visibles to the invisibles. Everyone is interested in disaster response because of its high visibility. State governments are not interested in investing in mitigation because the government cannot claim credit for its efforts unless a calamity hits the community while it is in power and hence there is no focus on disaster mitigation. But disaster response measures only have short-term gain and do not result in risk reduction. It can take up to four hours for help to reach an affected community. Therefore the initial response has to be from within the community and is crucial.”