Environmental Disaster Management in India: the Issues

In one line

Six issues run through environmental disaster management in India, and each has a provision that ought to answer it and a reason it does not.

MU prints this as "Elucidate the issues relating to environmental disaster management in India." The word elucidate invites a list, and a list of six issues with the law for each and the failure of each is worth more than a general lament.

The issue that comes first: an environmental disaster is two things at once

A chemical release, a dam failure, an oil spill or a landslide caused by quarrying is a disaster within section 2(d) of the Disaster Management Act 2005, because it arises from man made causes and results in damage to or degradation of environment beyond the coping capacity of the community. It is also an environmental event governed by the Environment (Protection) Act 1986, its rules, and the pollution statutes.

So two regimes apply to the same event, with different authorities, different powers and different purposes. The disaster machinery exists to protect people; the environmental machinery exists to protect the environment and to fix liability. Every issue below is a consequence of that duality.

Issue one, coordination

The problem. At a chemical accident the District Collector chairs the District Disaster Management Authority under section 25, the District Crisis Group under the Chemical Accidents Rules 1996 is also his, the State Pollution Control Board is the environmental authority, the factory inspectorate polices the hazardous process provisions of the OSH Code 2020, and the Central Crisis Group sits in Delhi. Four bodies, three statutes and one accident.

What ought to answer it. Section 10(2)(a) makes the National Executive Committee the coordinating body; section 22(1) makes the State Executive Committee the coordinating and monitoring body in the State; section 30(1) makes the District Authority the district coordinating body; and section 62 lets the Central Government direct anyone, notwithstanding any other law.

Why it does not. The coordination provisions are internal to this Act. Nothing in the Disaster Management Act allocates functions between a District Disaster Management Authority and a District Crisis Group, and the two were created by different Ministries under different statutes. The saving feature is that in most districts the same officer heads both.

Issue two, finance

The problem. Prevention competes for money with everything else a State does, and it competes badly, because the benefit of prevention is invisible.

What ought to answer it. Sections 46 to 48: six funds, response and mitigation, at national, State and district level. Section 49: every Ministry and department must provide in its annual budget for the activities in its plan. Sections 6(2)(g) and 18(2)(f): the authorities recommend funds for mitigation.