Disaster Governance in West Bengal, India
Abstract
Crisis management was carried out throughout India before the enactment of Disaster Management Act, 2005. Relief and rehabilitation works were done following relief codes/manuals. Civil defence had its warden structure for SAR.
In pre-independence period, a high-powered commission appointed by Lord Lytton submitted its report in 1880 for formulating general principles and suggesting particular measures of a preventive or protective character to resolve the defects in relief work. The report suggested for a famine relief code. This was the first attempt towards governance over relief work in India.
Disaster Management Act, 2005, enacted in India, has a provision to construct a disaster management authority at national and state levels in an attempt to create a standardised disaster governance. Apart from establishing the State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA), the state of West Bengal reconstructed its Department of Relief into Department of Disaster Management (DDM) in 2007 with an added responsibility of risk management. The Government of West Bengal continues its disaster risk reduction governance through this department which was actually set up in 1961 following the provisions laid in the Manual for Relief of Distress (1959), Food, Relief and Supplies Department (Relief Branch) of the Government of West Bengal. This paper will evaluate the role of the Disaster Management Department of the Government of West Bengal before and after the enactment of D.M. Act, 2005, as an example of governance in DRR and its drawbacks.
Keywords
Disaster Governance Disaster management Disaster risk reductionReferences
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