India: Cyclone Fani: the worst is over, but picking up the pieces won't be easy

By KumKum Dasgupta

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While the Patnaik government did well to weather Cyclone Fani — the state mobilised resources and personnel to evacuate more than a million people — and save lives, the challenges ahead of the state now will be equally gargantuan. “While restoring infrastructure will be one aspect of the challenge, rebuilding lives of poor people, especially the vulnerable category, will be a much greater one. This will need some smart and long-term thinking on the part of the government,” said Amar Nayak, a disaster management expert, and ActionAid’s Global Humanitarian Adviser.

In February, members of the People’s Solidarity Forum, a state-level forum of people’s organisations from 14 districts of Odisha, released a manifesto that focused on exactly that: Long-term planning to improve disaster management and response, mitigation, and building resilience of coastal communities. These proposals can also be considered by India’s other coastal cities that don’t yet have a plan to tackle such events.

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Last, but not least, all Indian cities need city-level disaster management plans. Unfortunately, as most city governments struggle to deal with other day-to-day challenges such as education, infrastructure and health, climate resilience and adaptation figure low on their list of priorities.

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