NEW DELHI: Union Home minister Amit Shah on Tuesday presided over a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee for the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on ‘Disaster Management and Capacity Building’ in New Delhi.
The session was attended by Ministers of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai and Bandi Sanjay Kumar; MPs; the Union Home Secretary; senior MHA officials; and senior officials from NDMA, NDRF, Fire Services, Civil Defence, Home Guards, and the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM).
In his speech, the Home minister asserted that before 2014, disaster management was mostly relief-focused, but now under the Modi government, disaster management is rescue- and prevention-focused. He emphasised that the policy of response to disasters is now formulated on four pillars—speed, efficiency and accuracy, and capacity building—which has resulted in precipitous declines in casualties as well as damages during catastrophes. “From the 1999 Odisha super cyclone, which killed 10,000 people, to the recent cyclones Biparjoy (2023) and Dana (2024) with no fatalities, India has come a long way in disaster response,” he said.
Shah reported that due to reforms and preparedness, damages caused by cyclones have decreased by 98 per cent, and heatwave casualties have also decreased considerably. He said that a plan is being drawn up to address repeated cloudbursts and landslides and stressed awareness of prevention of disasters down to district and gram panchayat levels.
Highlighting financial commitments, the home minister said that allocations to the State and National Disaster Response Funds have nearly tripled in the past decade—from Rs 66,000 crore (2004–2014) to Rs 2 lakh crore (2014–2024). Between 2021–22 and 2025–26, Rs 128,122 crore has been allocated to SDRF and Rs 54,770 crore to NDRF, besides Rs 13,693 crore for the National Disaster Mitigation Fund and Rs 32,031 crore for the State Disaster Mitigation Fund.
Shah said that the duration to deploy Inter-Ministerial Central Teams (IMCTs) to the states affected by disasters has decreased from 96 days to 8 days, with 83 teams having been deployed over the last ten years. He complimented NDMA’s policy-making and adoption of technology and NDRF’s efforts in implementing disaster response at the ground level.
He also referred to the success of programmes like Aapda Mitra and Yuva Aapda Mitra, under which more than one lakh community volunteers in 350 districts were trained. Likewise, under the National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project, multipurpose shelters have been constructed, early warning systems set up, and almost one lakh officials and volunteers trained.
Shah indicated that India has taken huge leaps in early warning distribution, with IMD and CWC now issuing cyclone and flood predictions up to seven days in advance. Common Alerting Protocol and the SACHET App have been launched for last-mile connectivity through SMS and coastal sirens.