The Funds: Response and Mitigation, National and State

In one line

Six funds, two national and four in every State, and the one that pays for prevention rather than relief was not brought into force until 5 February 2021.

In the wording a student can write in an examination: section 46 of the Disaster Management Act 2005 empowers the Central Government to constitute the National Disaster Response Fund; section 47 the National Disaster Mitigation Fund; section 48 requires every State Government to establish a State Disaster Response Fund, a District Disaster Response Fund, a State Disaster Mitigation Fund and a District Disaster Mitigation Fund; section 49 requires every Ministry and every State department to make provision in its annual budget for the activities in its disaster management plan; and section 50 permits emergency procurement with the tender requirement deemed waived. Section 45 vests the general superintendence, direction and control of the Disaster Response Force in the National Authority and its command in a Director General appointed by the Central Government.

The six funds

The distinction that organises the whole table. A response fund pays for what happens after the event: search and rescue, relief camps, food, water, medicine, temporary shelter. A mitigation fund pays for what is done before it: an embankment, a cyclone shelter, a retrofitted school building, a drainage channel. Every other question about these funds is a question about which of the two the money is for.

Note the verbs. The Central Government may constitute the two national funds by notification. The State Government shall establish all four State and district funds, immediately after the notifications constituting the State Authority and the District Authorities.

What the funds are for, as widened in 2025

Section 46(1), as amended. The National Disaster Response Fund is constituted for meeting different aspects of disaster management. The words before 9 April 2025 were for meeting any threatening disaster situation or disaster.

That is a real enlargement and it is worth an examination sentence. The old words tied the fund to an event. The new words tie it to disaster management as defined in section 2(e), which begins with prevention and mitigation and ends with rehabilitation, recovery and reconstruction. The national response fund may therefore now be applied to activities that have nothing to do with any particular disaster.