What is the issue?
- Unprecedented rains in Kerala and associated devastation has led to calls for declaring the floods a national calamity.
- It is imperative at this juncture to look into how calamities are actually classified as a national disaster.
What is a "disaster" legally?
- A “disaster” is defined as per the specifications in Disaster Management Act, 2005.
- Accordingly, a “disaster” means a catastrophe, mishap, calamity or grave occurrence in any area.
- This could arise from natural or man-made causes, or by accident or negligence.
- It should result in
- substantial loss of life or human suffering (or)
- damage to, and destruction of, property (or)
- damage to, or degradation of, environment
- It should either be of such a nature or magnitude as to be beyond the coping capacity of the community of the affected area.
- By this, a natural disaster may include an earthquake, flood, landslide, cyclone, tsunami, urban flood, heatwave, etc.
- It may also include a man-made disaster of nuclear, biological and chemical nature.
What is a national disaster?
- The central government has examined proposals in the past to define a national disaster.
- However, there is no provision, executive or legal, to declare a natural calamity as a national calamity.
- Hence there is no fixed criterion to define any calamity as a national calamity.
- In this regard, the 10th Finance Commission (1995-2000) examined a proposal.
- The proposal was to term a disaster “a national calamity of rarest severity” if it affects one-third of the state's population.
- The panel did not define a “calamity of rare severity”.
- But it stated that a calamity of rare severity would necessarily have to be adjudged on a case-to-case basis.
- It would have to take into account:
- the intensity and magnitude of the calamity
- the level of assistance needed
- the capacity of the state to tackle the problem
- the alternatives and flexibility available within the plans to provide relief, etc
- Accordingly, 2013 Uttarakhand flood and 2014 Cyclone Hudhud in Andhra Pradesh were classified as calamities of “severe nature”.
What are the benefits of such a declaration?
- On declaration as a calamity of “rare severity”/”severe nature”, support to the state government is provided at the national level.
- The Centre also considers additional assistance from the National Disaster Response Fund.
- A Calamity Relief Fund (CRF) is set up, with the corpus shared 3:1 between Centre and state.
- When CRF resources are inadequate, additional assistance is considered from the National Calamity Contingency Fund (NCCF).
- NCCF is funded 100% by the Centre.
- Relief in repayment of loans or grant of fresh loans to the affected persons on concessional terms are also considered.
How is the funding decided?
- It works as per the National Policy on Disaster Management, 2009.
- The National Crisis Management Committee deals with major crises that have serious or national ramifications.
- It is headed by the Cabinet Secretary.
- The inter-ministerial central teams are deputed to the affected states.
- They make assessment of damage and relief assistance required.
- An inter-ministerial group, headed by the Union Home Secretary, studies the assessment.
- It then recommends the quantum of assistance from the NDRF/NCCF.
- Based on this, a high-level committee approves the central assistance.
- It comprises of Finance Minister as chairman, and Home Minister, Agriculture Minister, and others as members.
Source: Indian Express
