Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday said the government is preparing a strategy to address the growing incidents of cloudbursts and landslides across several states.
Chairing a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Home Affairs on “Disaster Management and Capacity Building” in New Delhi, Shah said the Modi government has strengthened disaster management by moving away from the “relief-centric” approach of pre-2014 governments to a “rescue-centric” framework.
He underlined that the current policy rests on four pillars of capacity building, speed, efficiency, and accuracy, and noted that several major policy and institutional reforms have been introduced in the last decade.
Shah said the shift has yielded significant results. While the 1999 Odisha super cyclone claimed 10,000 lives, Cyclone Biparjoy in Gujarat (2023) and Cyclone Dana in Odisha (2024) led to zero casualties.
According to the home minister, Funding for SDRF and NDRF rose from ₹66,000 crore (2004–2014) to ₹2 lakh crore (2014–2024). For 2021–22 to 2025–26, ₹1,28,122 crore is allocated to SDRF, ₹54,770 crore to NDRF, ₹13,693 crore to NDMF, and ₹32,031 crore to SDMF. He noted that the average time to deploy Inter-Ministerial Central Teams (IMCTs) has fallen from 96 to 8 days, with 83 teams deployed at that pace over the past decade.
Shah credited the NDMA with advancing technology policy-making, and the NDRF with effective on-ground implementation. Through the National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project, cyclone shelters have been built, 92,995 volunteers and officials trained, and early warning systems established across five coastal states. In addition, a ₹5,000 crore scheme has been launched to modernise and expand state fire services.
India’s progress in early warning dissemination was highlighted as well. IMD and CWC now provide 7-day advance forecasts for floods and cyclones, and, under the direction of Amit Shah and central ministries, the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)–based Integrated Alert System issues alerts via SMS, coastal sirens, and other media. Shah urged robust promotion of the ‘SACHET’ app for timely disaster alerts.
