New policy to help Indian communities displaced by annual river & coastal erosion drafted
- February 23, 2023
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
No Comments
New policy to help Indian communities displaced by annual river & coastal erosion drafted
Subject: Geography
Section : Indian Physical Geography
Context: National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) is drafting India’s first national policy for the mitigation and rehabilitation of the people affected by river and coastal erosion.
About the draft policy:
- The Union Ministry of Home Affairs had directed NDMA to draft a policy based on the 15th Finance Commission’s report for 2021, in which it had for the first time emphasised on rehabilitation and resettlement for people displaced by the river and coastal erosion, in view of the increasing threat due to climate change.
- Until now, most policies in the country only address displacement after sudden rapid-onset disasters such as floods and cyclones.
Key features include:
- The 15th Finance Commission’s report considers two aspects related to the new policy.
- First, it introduces mitigation measures to prevent erosion under the National Disaster Mitigation Fund (NDMF), with an allocation of Rs 1,500 crore for 2021-26.
- Second, for the resettlement of displaced people affected by erosion, it allocates Rs 1,000 crore for the same period under the National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF).
- This is being taken out of the recovery and reconstruction window introduced for the first time under NDRF in 2021.
- NDMA will coordinate the allocations and expenses under NDRF and NDMF at the national level for mitigation and rehabilitation.
- District disaster management authorities would be the nodal agency to implement the measures, aided by other district agencies and a specific panchayat-level committee.
- The DDMA will prepare mitigation and rehabilitation plans and submit them to the SDMAs, from where the proposed measures will be appraised by NDMA and finally submitted to the home ministry.
- A high-level committee of the ministry will then approve the disbursal of funds.
- DDMAs will also be responsible for organising, monitoring and evaluation of the efforts under the supervision of their state and national counterparts.
- Detailed hazard assessments carried out by central agencies such as the National Centre for Coast Research, National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management, Central Water Commission and, high-resolution LiDAR data available with National Remote Sensing Centre should be made available to the SDMAs.
- These should be made available in easy-to-access in geographic information systems (GIS) formats by the NDMA.
- The policy insists on mapping coastal and river erosion impacts and coming up with a database of diverse challenges confronted by the affected and vulnerable habitations.
- The draft policy also recommends impact and vulnerability assessments of regions threatened by coastal and river erosion to be undertaken periodically, which will be spearheaded by SDMAs in coordination with the state departments and DDMAs.