Disaster Management in India: Policies and Frameworks

India sits at the crossroads of nearly every hazard known to humankind – earthquakes rattle the Himalayan belt, cyclones batter the 8,000-km coastline, floods inundate the Gangetic plains, droughts scorch the Deccan, and landslides reshape the Western Ghats every monsoon. Managing these risks for 1.4 billion people requires far more than emergency relief. It demands a structured, multi-layered governance system that can anticipate, prevent, and respond to disasters at every level – from the Prime Minister’s office down to the village panchayat. Over the past two decades, India has built exactly that: a legal, institutional, and policy architecture that has transformed the country from a reactive relief provider into one of the world’s more proactive disaster-resilient nations.

A turning point: the Disaster Management Act, 2005 🔗

Before 2005, India’s approach to disasters was fragmented and largely reactive. Disaster management fell under the Ministry of Agriculture – a colonial-era arrangement inherited from drought and famine administration. Three catastrophic events changed this: the 1999 Odisha Super Cyclone, the 2001 Gujarat earthquake that killed over 20,000 people, and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The tsunami, which claimed more than 10,000 Indian lives, exposed a glaring gap – the country had no unified disaster management law, no dedicated response force, and no coordination mechanism between the Centre and states.

The response was the Disaster Management Act, 2005, notified on 26 December 2005. This landmark legislation, with 11 chapters and 79 sections, provides the legal and institutional backbone for disaster management across the country. It shifted the national approach from relief-centric recovery to a continuous cycle of prevention, mitigation, preparedness, and response. The Act created three statutory bodies at the national, state, and district levels – together forming India’s three-tier disaster governance framework.

The three-tier institutional structure 🔗

The genius of the 2005 Act lies in its layered design. Each tier has clearly defined responsibilities, yet all three function as interdependent bodies rather than parallel structures.

National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) 🔗

At the apex sits the National Disaster Management Authority, chaired by the Prime Minister. The NDMA is mandated to formulate national policies, plans, and guidelines for disaster management and ensure a timely, effective response. Its responsibilities include approving the National Disaster Management Plan, laying down guidelines that state authorities must follow when preparing their own plans, recommending funds for mitigation, and coordinating the integration of disaster risk reduction into development projects across all central ministries.

Beyond policy, the NDMA also runs operational programmes – the Common Alerting Protocol for geo-targeted disaster alerts, the National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project, school safety initiatives, and the web-based Dynamic Composite Risk Atlas, which was deployed successfully during Cyclone Biparjoy in June 2023 and Cyclone Michaung in December 2023.

State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) 🔗

Every state has an SDMA chaired by its Chief Minister. The SDMA mirrors the national structure at the state level – formulating the state disaster management policy, approving the State Disaster Management Plan in line with NDMA guidelines, coordinating implementation, and advising on fund allocation. States like Gujarat, Odisha, and Kerala – each shaped by catastrophic past disasters – have built particularly strong SDMAs with dedicated staff and substantial budgets. Odisha’s transformation is often cited as a global best practice: the state has reduced cyclone-related mortality by over 90% since the 1999 super cyclone.

District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) 🔗

The DDMA is where policy meets the ground. Chaired by the District Collector with an elected co-chair, it includes the Chief Executive Officer, Superintendent of Police, Chief Medical Officer, and state-nominated members. The DDMA prepares the district plan, coordinates with local authorities, and directs departments to take preventive or mitigation measures. In moments of crisis – when a river breaches its embankments or a landslide blocks a highway – it is the DDMA that acts first, well before national resources arrive.

Specialised agencies that make the framework work 🔗

The three-tier structure is reinforced by specialised bodies, each with a distinct mandate.

National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) 🔗

Established under Sections 44-45 of the DM Act, the NDRF is the country’s dedicated professional disaster response force – and is recognised as one of the world’s largest rapid reaction forces for this purpose. It currently comprises 16 battalions of roughly 1,149 personnel each, drawn from central paramilitary forces such as the BSF, CRPF, CISF, ITBP, SSB, and Assam Rifles. Each battalion fields 18 self-contained specialist search-and-rescue teams that include structural engineers, technicians, medical personnel, and canine units.

The NDRF has become a visible symbol of India’s disaster response capability, deployed during the 2014 Jammu & Kashmir floods, Cyclone Fani in 2019, the Uttarakhand glacier burst in 2021, and internationally during the Turkey-Syria earthquake response in 2023. Pre-positioning of battalions before cyclone and monsoon seasons has dramatically reduced response times.

National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) 🔗

The National Institute of Disaster Management is the capacity-building and research arm of the framework. It develops training modules for NDMA, SDMA, and DDMA officials, conducts research and documentation, and works on integrating disaster risk reduction into school and university curricula. A southern campus opened in Vijayawada in January 2025, expanding its reach. Through its university network (IUINDRR-NIDM), the institute is also pushing disaster studies into formal higher education.

National Executive Committee (NEC) 🔗

The NEC, chaired by the Union Home Secretary, is the operational arm that assists the NDMA. It prepares the National Disaster Management Plan for NDMA approval, monitors implementation of national policy, and coordinates line ministries during active disasters. This is the body that runs day-to-day operations – a common point of confusion, since the Prime Minister chairs NDMA for policy but does not “manage” disasters directly.

Key policies and plans 🔗

National Policy on Disaster Management, 2009 🔗

Approved in October 2009, the National Policy on Disaster Management (NPDM) translates the Act’s vision into a strategic framework. It articulates the goal of building a “safe and disaster-resilient India” through a holistic, proactive, multi-disaster, and technology-driven strategy. The policy explicitly places community-based disaster management, capacity development, and cooperation among national, regional, and international agencies at the centre of its themes. It also aligns with global instruments – the Hyogo Framework for Action, the Millennium Development Goals, and the Rio Declaration.

National Disaster Management Plan (NDMP) 🔗

The NDMP, first released in 2016 and revised in 2019, is India’s strategic blueprint for disaster resilient development. It provides direction to government agencies across all phases of the disaster management cycle – from risk assessment to recovery. Importantly, the 2019 version incorporates commitments under three major global frameworks: the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. It also reflects the Prime Minister’s 10-Point Agenda on DRR announced at the Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in 2016.

Alignment with the Sendai Framework 🔗

India was among the early signatories of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, adopted at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in March 2015. The framework sets seven global targets and four priorities for action: understanding disaster risk, strengthening disaster risk governance, investing in resilience, and enhancing preparedness for “Build Back Better” recovery.

India’s NDMP 2019 is structured around these priorities, translated into five thematic areas for action. The government has also launched the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), headquartered in New Delhi, as an India-led global initiative. More recently, the Mission Mausam programme (2024-26) focuses on AI and machine learning for weather forecasting, and the Disaster Management (Amendment) Act, 2025 – which came into force in April 2025 – further strengthens the framework by creating Urban Disaster Management Authorities for state capitals and large cities, establishing a National Disaster Database, and giving statutory status to the National Crisis Management Committee.

Community participation: the first responders 🔗

Every serious review of disaster response comes back to the same finding: when a disaster strikes, the first responders are not the NDRF or the army – they are the neighbours, the panchayat members, the local shopkeepers. Recognising this, the government launched the Aapda Mitra scheme, which trains community volunteers in basic disaster response skills.

Initially piloted with 6,000 volunteers across 30 flood-prone districts, the scheme was later scaled up to cover 350 districts with a target of training one lakh community volunteers in search and rescue, first aid, shelter management, and safe evacuation. The newer Yuva Aapda Mitra programme extends this approach by training volunteers drawn from the NCC, NSS, Bharat Scouts and Guides, and the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan. In flood-prone Odisha, Aapda Mitra volunteers have been documented physically carrying persons with disabilities, elderly residents, and pregnant women to shelters during cyclones – the kind of last-mile action that government agencies simply cannot deliver at scale.

Capacity building and financial architecture 🔗

Capacity building operates at multiple levels. Under the National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project, over 24,000 government officials across sectors like health, education, panchayati raj institutions, urban local bodies, and rural development have been trained through more than 900 capacity-building programmes. In parallel, nearly 69,000 community representatives have received training in first aid, search and rescue, and shelter management.

On the financial side, the framework rests on two pillars – the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF), placed at each state’s disposal for response to notified natural disasters, and the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF), which kicks in for disasters of a “severe nature” based on an Inter-Ministerial Central Team assessment. The 15th Finance Commission earmarked approximately ₹2.28 lakh crore for disaster management, signalling a serious commitment to embedding resilience into development planning.

Technological integration 🔗

Technology has become central to modern disaster governance. The India Meteorological Department’s colour-coded warning system (Green, Yellow, Orange, Red) feeds directly into state response protocols. Doppler radars, the Indian Tsunami Early Warning System at INCOIS, Central Water Commission flood forecasting, and the Common Alerting Protocol for mobile alerts together create what officials call “impact-based forecasting” – moving from simply predicting weather to predicting consequences. Cyclone Biparjoy in 2023 is a striking example: over one lakh people were evacuated from Gujarat’s coast, and there were zero human casualties. Compare that to 1999, when the Odisha super cyclone killed nearly 10,000 people.

Persistent challenges 🔗

The framework is impressive on paper, but gaps remain. Observers have pointed out that the Act historically focused on sudden disasters and paid less attention to slow-onset emergencies like heatwaves, desertification, and epidemics – a gap the COVID-19 response painfully exposed. Coordination challenges persist among NDMA, NEC, NIDM, and NDRF despite the 2025 amendments. Rural disaster awareness remains limited, hovering around 30-35% by NDMA’s own 2022 assessment. Fund disbursement delays and SDRF underutilisation have repeatedly strained centre-state relations, most recently during the Wayanad landslides of 2024. And as the Mongabay investigation notes, implementation of inclusive disaster planning for persons with disabilities remains inequitable, with plans still relying on outdated 2011 Census data.

What do you think? With climate change intensifying the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, how can India’s three-tier disaster management framework evolve to respond faster and more inclusively? And should community volunteers and civil society organisations be given a more formal, statutory role in disaster governance, rather than functioning as auxiliary first responders?

References

1. https://ndmindia.mha.gov.in/ndmi/images/The%20Disaster%20Management%20Act,%202005.pdf
2. https://ndma.gov.in/
3. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2082745
4. https://evs.institute/disaster-management/india-disaster-management-ndma-sdma-ddma/
5. https://nidm.gov.in/PDF/guidelines/sdmp.pdf
6. https://www.mha.gov.in/sites/default/files/NPDM-101209.pdf
7. https://www.undrr.org/implementing-sendai-framework/what-sendai-framework
8. https://aapdamitra.ndma.gov.in/about/
9. https://www.iqraias.com/disaster-management-in-india-from-relief-to-resilience/
10. https://vajiramandravi.com/current-affairs/disaster-management-act-2005/
11. https://india.mongabay.com/2025/08/is-indias-disaster-preparedness-inclusive-enough/