Disaster Management Amendment Bill, 2024: Key Proposals

The recent introduction of a Bill in Parliament to amend the Disaster Management Act, 2005, is a significant move aimed at enhancing the operational efficiencies of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). As much as the Bill proposes many very vital changes, it fails to address the core issues pitched against institutional capacity and administrative powers of the NDMA.

About the Disaster Management Amendment Bill 2024

The Disaster Management Amendment Bill 2024 was tabled in Parliament with a view to modernize and build resilience into the disaster management framework that was laid down by the Disaster Management Act of the year 2005. This bill is an attempt towards tackling the changing nature and growing frequency of natural disasters, mainly due to the rising trend of climate change and urbanization. Even though it suggests a critical overhaul, the act has not taken into consideration that the NDMA should be granted ample administrative and financial autonomy to make it more effective.

Latest News Related to the Disaster Management Amendment Bill Bill Passed by Parliament (March 2025): The most crucial update is that the Disaster Management (Amendment) Bill 2024 was passed by both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha in March 2025. This means it is now an Act (or will soon be enacted into law), replacing the earlier Bill status. This transition from Bill to Act is a major development.

Key Amendments Proposed in the Disaster Management Amendment Bill 2024

The Disaster Management Amendment Bill 2024 proposes the establishment of Urban Disaster Management Authorities and mandates the creation of State Disaster Response Forces (SDRFs). It also formalizes the legal status of the National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC) and enhances the role of the NDMA.

Urban Disaster Management Authorities

The Bill provides for having an Urban Disaster Management Authority at the State Capital and other cities that have municipal corporations. This constitutes another important feature of the Bill, in that, being headed by municipal commissioners, it gives the desired more united and more integrated approach toward the disasters specific to urban areas, like flooding. This feature tends to enhance disaster responsiveness, thus ensuring more effective disaster management in metropolitan areas.

Mandatory State Disaster Response Forces

While many States have raised their own disaster response forces, they vary considerably in terms of capacity and effectiveness. To bring about standardization across all States, the Bill makes it mandatory for them to set up and maintain State Disaster Response Forces, with a similar pattern as that of the Central force. The standardization is to bring in place improvement in disaster preparedness at the state level and to provide uniformity and strength in the disaster response of the country.

Read the article on Operation Pawan!

Legal Statute to the National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC)

The National Crisis Management Committee, headed by the Cabinet Secretary, has been functioning informally in managing national crises, including disasters. The Bill gives a formal recognition to the NCMC as the principal body to manage national-level disasters, which clearly gives a legal mandate to the NCMC. Formalization will help inintegrating clearly the coordination and management of disasters that have serious or national ramifications with an assurance of a more effective response at the national level.

Enhanced Role of NDMA

It tries to broaden and expand the role of the NDMA in carrying out a periodic risk assessment and keeping a national disaster database, which will be a repository of information on disaster assessment, funds disbursed, expenditure incurred, preparations, and mitigation plans taken, thereby turning out to be a national level inventory of management and planning of disasters. The NDMA would further recommend guidelines for minimum standard of relief and compensation so that uniformity in standard of relief and compensation can be maintained, hence making the phase of recovery uniform and effective.

Read the article on the disaster risk index!

Compensation Guidelines

It will also recommend guidelines to the minimum standards of relief to be provided to disaster-affected people, including suggesting standard compensation amounts for loss of life, property damage, and livelihood disruptions. This will hence make such compensations more systematic and guarantee that the reliefs offered are free and uniformly applied to the victims.

Clarity on Man-Made Disasters

More importantly, the Bill breaks silence on the definition of man-made disasters. It elaborates that "man-made causes" exclude situations such as riots related to law and order. This is a critical differentiation for legal and operational clarity. This would enable the disaster management framework to focus on natural and other man-made disasters like industrial accidents, while keeping civil disturbances outside its purview.

Administrative Oversight

One major administrative reform being introduced through the Bill is the acceptance of a vice-chairperson vacancy that has prevailed for a long time. It makes provision for the chairperson (the Prime Minister) and any member he designates to manage daily activities on a routine basis. By doing so, it institutionalizes a de facto situation and ensures that operational management continues within the NDMA in case the vice-chairperson position is not filled.

Read the article on the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR)!

Unaddressed Deficiencies

Despite these progressive changes, the recommendation on increasing the institutional capacity and status of the NDMA remains silent. Specifically, the problem at present is that the NDMA suffers from having no administrative or financial powers, and every decision has to be routed from the Home Ministry. This leads only to inefficiency and delays during these times of urgency.

The absence of a vice-chairperson has left the NDMA without critical leadership and the political weight needed for effective coordination with state governments and other central agencies. Furthermore, the NDMA is a highly under-resourced organization, with only three members being responsible for many things. The proposed amendments do not cover up these structural gray areas pertaining to the functioning of the NDMA.

Read the article on the chemical disaster risk in India!

The Disaster Management Act 2005 is a comprehensive legislation that establishes an integrated approach in the management of disaster in India. It is tugged or dragged by recurrent catastrophic events and provides a legal framework for disaster management at national, state, and district levels. It has been useful for institutionalizing disaster management across the country.

Conceptualization of a separate dedicated disaster management framework in the country began with the 1998 Odisha super cyclone. Earlier, it was felt that a structured disaster response ought to be institutionalized. Disastrous Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 hastened the enactment of such a legislation, which further emphasized that disaster management has to be a holistic and coordinated approach.

Challenges Associated with the Disaster Management Act 2005

The Disaster Management Act, 2005, though being a strong tool, has the following challenges:

• Financial Autonomy: The NDMA lacks administrative financial powers and has to rely mainly on the Home Ministry for most decisions. This may result in delays and inefficiencies in disaster management.
• Inadequate Human Resources: The positions of vice-chairperson and other key positions within the NDMA have been vacant for an extended period. The weak strength badly affects the working of the body.
• Coordination Issues: Coordination among central and state agencies is a complicated process that involves a lot of bureaucratic levels, and in most cases, it leads to a delay in response and recovery efforts.
• Local-Level Implementation: Given that disaster management effectiveness practices are influenced at random from the district and state level, some areas are not well equipped with enough resources and training to deal with the disasters effectively.

Read the article on the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure CDRI!

• Greater autonomy and power: The efficiency of NDMA can be improved with more financial and administrative powers, respectively. In due course, this decision can be an empowering factor with regard to its elevation to the status of a government department or full-fledged ministry.
• Human Resource Development: By filling all senior level positions, like the vice-chairperson and making all levels properly staffed, will further enhance the operational potential of NDMA. There should also be recruitment and training programs for those that can meet the demand for skilling NDMA human resources.
• Enhanced Coordination: The coordination process of various processes if made efficient at lower levels, the district level, thus can reduce the delay by bureaucrats. Knowledge of communication protocols and responsibilities during disaster response can greatly improve all coordination efficiency.
• Local capacity building: There will be greater attention on a local approach through frequent training and resource allocation to ensure all states and districts implement similar, if not the same, principles of disaster management. This will be done by further empowering the local disaster response authorities with relevant resources and knowledge in order to enhance casual response with prompt and effective disaster mitigation.
• Community Participation: This would, in turn help in harnessing local knowledge and resources in a better manner toward improving disaster preparedness and responses. Community-based disaster management plans should form an intrinsic part of the overall national and state plans.

Read the article on crowd disaster management!

Conclusion

The Disaster Management Amendment Bill 2024 really brings about much-needed changes to the structure. At this juncture, a comprehensive approach to address operational and institutional weaknesses is required. In such a case, it is considered that bestowing greater independence on the NDMA, along with adequate resources in terms of updated administrative structure, would really maximize the disaster management system in India, providing a formed, robust, responsive, and effective structure capable of dealing with changing natural as well as man-made disaster situations.

Testbook provides a set of comprehensive notes for different competitive exams. Testbook is always on the top of the list because of its best quality assured products like live tests, mocks, Content pages, GK and current affairs videos, and much more. You can check out our UPSC Online Coaching, and download the Testbook App now to check out various other topics relevant to the UPSC IAS Exam.

UPSC Previous Year Questions

Year	Question
2017	In December 2004, tsunami brought havoc on 14 countries including India. Discuss the factors responsible for the occurrence of Tsunami and its effects on life and economy. In the light of guidelines of NDMA (2010) describe the mechanisms for preparedness to reduce the risk during such events.

UPSC Practice Questions

Q1. The Disaster Management Amendment Bill 2024 introduces significant changes to improve disaster response and management. Discuss the key amendments proposed in the bill and evaluate their potential impact on disaster preparedness and mitigation in India. (250 words)