The Disaster Management Act 2005: the Scheme and the Salient Features
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Nine
Syllabus topic 5, "Preparedness on Environmental Disasters"
Pages 578 to 583 of 913
In one line
The Act builds four authorities, four plans, four funds and one response force, and every one of them exists at three levels, national, State and district, with a fifth urban level added in 2025.
This chapter is the map. It is worth learning before the detail, because the questions the University asks about this Act are almost always about the scheme rather than about a section, and because an answer that gets the architecture right can carry the detail lightly.
The four columns
Everything in the Disaster Management Act 2005 sits in one of four columns, and each column exists at every level of government.
| National | State | District | Urban, since 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Authority | National Disaster Management Authority, section 3, chaired by the Prime Minister | State Disaster Management Authority, section 14, chaired by the Chief Minister | District Disaster Management Authority, section 25, chaired by the Collector or District Magistrate | Urban Disaster Management Authority, section 41A, for State capitals and cities with a municipal corporation |
| Executive arm | National Executive Committee, section 8, chaired by the Union Home Secretary | State Executive Committee, section 20, chaired by the Chief Secretary | the District Authority itself | the Urban Authority itself |
| Plan | National Plan, section 11 | State Plan, section 23 | District Plan, section 31 | Urban Plan, section 41A(4) |
| Fund | National Disaster Response Fund, section 46, and National Disaster Mitigation Fund, section 47 | State Disaster Response Fund, section 48, and State Disaster Mitigation Fund | District Disaster Response Fund and District Disaster Mitigation Fund, section 48 | drawn from the State and district funds |
Add to that grid three institutions that have no level: the National Institute of Disaster Management under section 42, which trains and researches; the National Disaster Response Force under section 44, which is the specialist force for a threatening disaster situation, with State response forces alongside; and, added in 2025, the National Crisis Management Committee under section 8A, chaired by the Cabinet Secretary, as the nodal body for major disasters with serious or national ramifications, and the High Level Committee under section 8B.
What the Act does, in six sentences
It makes a plan compulsory at every level. Before 2005 disaster response in India was administrative practice; after it, the National Plan, the State Plan, the District Plan and now the Urban Plan are statutory documents that must be prepared and reviewed.
It puts a political head at the top of each authority. The Prime Minister chairs the National Authority, the Chief Minister the State Authority, the Collector the district. That is a deliberate design choice, and the criticism of it is taken up later in this module.
It makes every Ministry and Department plan for itself. Sections 22, 30, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 and 40 impose duties on the Central Government, State Governments, Ministries and Departments, and local authorities to prepare and implement their own plans and to integrate mitigation into their development plans.
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