RISK ZONE

The Book 

"Disaster Management in India: Challenges and Strategies" 

by Dr. R. K. Dave

On 10^th Feb 2018 my book on the “Disaster Management in India: Challenges and Opportunities” is released. This the First Book presenting glimpses of Past and Present of Disaster Management in India along with recommendations on the future directions for -  Governance, Practitioners, academia and other stakeholders.

This book – “Disaster Management in India: Challenges and Strategies” - provides a practical and realistic understanding of the evolving status of disaster management in India. The book discusses techno-legal systems for disaster management and their real-life effectiveness based on the author’s own professional experience as well as available literature including studies, reviews and audits reports.

A case study of the 2001 Bhuj Earthquake conducted by the author is at the nucleus of the book and provides a clear understanding on how interdependent sub-systems (social, organizational, infrastructure) can fail during severe incidents, and the consequences thereof.

The Bhuj earthquake adversely impacted the operational capacity of the organisations responsible for emergency response (at district and tehsil) and aggravated the situation from bad to worse with wide-spread compounding failure of infrastructures (communications failure across conventional phone lines, cell phone systems, outage of electricity / water supply,  destruction of Government buildings ) in the affected area.

Lack of resources, lack of coordination, and poor communication are endemic to severely damaged disaster environments like 2001 Bhuj earthquake and are very commonly seen across the world. What is more important for the future is that new methods are being evolved that overcome the potential risks posed by such initial conditions for improving organizational performance. Lessons from the 2001 Bhuj earthquake highlighted in this book are still relevant even after 16 years of the earthquake and provide deeper insight for evolving methods capable of overcoming the potential risks posed by the initial conditions in the disaster environments.

The book critically examines performance status of disaster management in the post DM Act 2005 period and identifies many relevant issues and challenges. The book also looks at the development of institutions for disaster management and their design in response to various disasters management scenarios with a view to improving actual practices.

At the end, the book proposes intervention strategies for strengthening and improving disaster management systems in India keeping in mind the latest developments and best-practices suited to Indian conditions. Drawing on the author’s decades of experience both in the domains of disaster management and technology, the book provides tips on - Emergency Operations Center design and development; Media integration into DM, emergency Resources Management systems development and Crowd management at venues of mass gathering including places of worships.