How to assess disasters: 8 Indian states adopt global standards

Subject : Environment

Context-

An international framework for assessing losses and damages in the aftermath of a disaster is now being used to evaluate the financial and social cost of local disasters in eight states in India.
The framework helps get recovery and reconstruction efforts right following a disaster.
Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) is being done simultaneously in Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Odisha and Meghalaya.

What is a PDNA?

The PDNA tool was developed by the UN Development Group, the World Bank and the European Union.
The aim was to develop and use common assessment and recovery planning approaches in post-crisis settings.
The main goal is to assess the full extent of a disaster’s impact, define the needs for recovery, and, in so doing, serve as the basis for designing a recovery strategy and guide donors’ funding.
Objective: A PDNA looks ahead to restoring damaged infrastructure, houses, livelihoods, services, governance and social systems, and includes an emphasis on reducing future disaster risks and building resilience.
This includes a calculation of the disaster’s impact on Gross Domestic Product, the balance of payment and fiscal budget.
Secondly, how this affects the flow of revenue to multiple sectors is evaluated.
For example, the number of farmers’ income affected per damaged acre of land and the livelihoods lost.
Overall, a quantitative assessment is additionally done on the social and environmental impact of the disaster.
The Indian PDNA manual of 2019 says that this is not a replacement for the current Relief Memorandum used by states.
PDNA adds a recovery and resilience component to disaster management.

Earlier efforts-

This is not the first time PDNA has been conducted in India.
It was first adopted during the Kerala floods of 2018 and again during the cyclone in Odisha in 2019, both unprecedented disasters.
However, until now, the assessment was only limited to massive disasters that required international funding from the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the United Nations, as state capacities were compromised due to the scale of the disasters.

15th Finance Commission provision-

The 15th finance commission report of 2021, for the first time, made a provision for recovery and reconstruction in the national disaster management budget, which is at the core of the PDNA.
The states did not receive international funding to do the current ongoing PDNAs, as they are expected to take the money from the budget.
The State Disaster Risk Management Fund bifurcated the total amount Rs 1,60,153 crore between State Disaster Relief Funds and State Disaster Mitigation Funds.
The former gets 80 per cent (Rs 121,182 crore) and the latter gets (32,030 crore).
There are three more allocations under the SDRF: Response and relief (40 per cent), recovery and reconstruction (30 per cent) and preparedness and capacity-building (10 per cent).

State Disaster Management Authorities’ reaction to PDNAs-

As it aims to encourage building back better, sometimes it can have too much idealism.
PDNA may not make a difference in funding as the government will only follow the norms of assistance when dispersing funds.
After calculating the damage as per the norms of assistance, we are asking for Rs 4,416 crore in our memorandum.
But in reality, the cost of losses and damages could be Rs 15,000 crore.

Global scenario-

Globally, of the 55 PDNAs conducted worldwide since 2008, only two droughts — one in Malawi and the other Marshall Islands in 2016 — were of slow-onset disasters.
PDNA makes more sense for states that are flood and cyclone prone
When it comes to drought, the agriculture department, water and irrigation department must work out strategies for mitigation.