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Disaster Management (Amendment) Bill, 2024
Context:
The Disaster Management (Amendment) Bill, 2024, passed in Lok Sabha (December 2024), aims to improve disaster preparedness amid rising climate threats. Indian cities continue to face water shortages, floods, cyclones, and extreme heat due to poor resource allocation and planning.
Urbanisation and Its Impact
- Between 2020 and 2035, 200 million people are expected to move to Indian cities, underscoring the need to integrate informal settlements into long-term urban resilience strategies.
- Informal settlements are often excluded from planning and disaster responses, leaving millions without adequate infrastructure to handle climate risks.
The Need for Inclusive Urban Disaster Management
- The bill proposes setting up urban disaster management authorities, a positive step toward improving response mechanisms.
- However, informal settlements, where one in five urban Indians live, risk being excluded.
- These areas lack infrastructure and services, making them highly vulnerable to climate disasters.
Lessons from Global Resilience Solutions
- The report From Informality to Impact (by Transitions Research and the Global Resilience Partnership) assessed 130+ resilience solutions from the Global South.
- Scalable and community-driven solutions can help cities adapt to climate risks.
Leveraging Local Knowledge and Partnerships
- Several home-grown solutions have been successfully implemented in informal areas. These include community-based initiatives that utilise local knowledge to address climate risks.
- Jodhpur’s Heat Action Plan: Local women collaborated to map extreme heat risks, which led to the first detailed vulnerability assessment for heatwaves in Rajasthan.
- Practical Action in Odisha developed sustainable sanitation systems, which help reduce water contamination, especially during extreme weather, and have been scaled with the support of private and philanthropic funding.
Digital Solutions and Diversified Financing
- AI-Powered Climate Risk Mapping: The SEEDS-Microsoft AI for Resilient Cities project used weather data and satellite imagery to map heatwave risks in Delhi and Nagpur. This helped prioritise early warnings and improve health system preparedness, benefiting 72,000 people in 2023 alone.
- Innovative Finance Models: Traditional financing is inaccessible for many informal workers.
- Three Wheels United, a fintech startup, offers 100% debt financing with low interest rates and no collateral for electric auto-rickshaws. Over 20,000 drivers have transitioned to electric rickshaws, doubling their daily income.
The Path Forward
- Urban resilience solutions need government backing, including:
- Local and state budgets
- City-level climate action plans
- Urban development programs
- Strengthened policies under the Disaster Management Act
