Interview with Kamal Kishore, Member, NDMA India

Kamal Kishore, Member, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), India, is also serving as the Indian Co-Chair of the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI).

ADPC recently held an exclusive ‘Climate Talks’ discussion with this esteemed disaster risk and resilience expert on India’s efforts towards strengthening disaster and climate resilience.

Which natural hazards or climate-induced threats have the highest impacts in India?

Let me start with cyclones. We traditionally invest more in cyclone resilience for the eastern coast of India, but we’ve noticed increased cyclone activity on the western coast as well in the last 6 to 7 years.

While we’re not yet sure that this is a long-lasting trend, it has an impact on our resources as we need to expand the same success against cyclones to both coastlines.

The same is the issue with flooding. There have been years when the overall monsoons performance in terms of All India Rainfall Index have been lower then normal, yet some parts of the country experienced extreme floods.

We really have to focus on improving our flood risk management practices, early warning systems, flood control measures, and better land-use planning.

We also have “inter-connected mountain hazards” like glacial lake outbursts which lead to floods, landslides, avalanches, formation of lakes, and flash flooding downstream.

We’re working towards coming up with an integrated approach for monitoring these hazards and taking steps to provide as best an early warning as we can and overall, strengthen systems at the community-level to respond to these warnings and take necessary action.

A lot of these hazards will impact our infrastructure, and India is a country which still has a large infrastructure deficit.

This is why big investments are going into building the resilience of such projects for generations to come, and it is in this context that India has been working with 26 other countries and international organizations to create the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure to advance resilient power systems, water systems, telecommunications, railways, and freight corridors to withstand future climates.

How effective is India in promoting disaster risk reduction?

We’ve had good success in saving more lives by connecting science to society and taking a multi-sectoral approach. For example, we’ve been able to reduce mortalities from heatwaves by 90 percent, but we need to go beyond and reduce other kinds of losses as well.

We have to save lives, but also livelihoods. That requires making our infrastructure services resilient to shocks from natural hazards. We are making sure that power systems don’t go down when cyclones hit or come back on quickly.

There were times when power outages in cyclone-affected areas went on for months, but now some cities having underground cabling and better management systems, that recovery time has reduced to just a few days.

Can you share some experiences in managing disasters and climate change during COVID-19?

It’s been a challenging time! We’ve had five cyclones during the pandemic on the eastern and western coasts.

The National Disaster Risk Force (NDRF) had to not only protect people affected by cyclones, but also themselves from health risks. Around 100 NDRF members tested positive, but luckily, they all recovered in good time.

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) were redrafted, protective gear was distributed and evacuation procedures were revised to minimize the risk of transmission. Once vaccines were distributed, NDRF members were prioritized.

One key lesson is that SOPs cannot be frozen in time, they need to continually evolve to respond to new risks that become known, otherwise they will become outdated and ineffective.

Given India’s high population, what are the roles of local governments and communities?

They shouldn’t only participate; they have to lead. Communities know how to respond to an early warning in an organized fashion.

When it comes to cyclone shelters, the story to be told is that these shelters are multi-purpose and they’re managed by communities themselves.

If the Government is the only one managing it, then it is very possible that the cyclone shelter is either not available or not in a good condition.

If it is managed in the community as part of their daily lives, they will have their own organization around it to ensure that the needs of women, children, old people, etc., are properly met during evacuation.

How is the Government ensuring access to disaster risk financing?

The Finance Commission, constituted every five years, looks at how central revenues are distributed and one of its thematic areas is disaster risk management.

From this Commission onwards, India has predictable finance that covers the entire spectrum of disaster risk management activities—there are resources allocated to response, recovery and preparedness and capacity building on the one hand, and mitigation on the other.

The resources we have from these dedicated windows will be able to catalyze additional financing within the development sectors themselves.

Turning policies into action is very challenging, however, so I hope that in a few years we can measure our success not by the amount of money we spent, but rather the outcomes we have achieved in risk reduction.

Kamal spoke to Ms. Vidya Rana, Senior Communications Manager, ADPC.