The national disaster management policy has been with the UPA government since December 20, 2007 but it has not yet been cleared. Three years after the setting up of NDMA, the government has only now in principle approved the post of the director general, NDRF. Fourteen ministries have been sent policy papers but as of now only one ministry appears to have had the time to respond to NDMA.

Little wonder then that General Vij told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last year that he would rather quit than be blamed for NDMA’s incompetence at a later date. The home ministry is tasked to service NDMA. But it still believes in the old thesis of district magistrates being nodal actors.

NDMA initiated a dialogue with the health ministry for better medical and ambulance services and extending civil defence facilities to all the districts, as opposed to only 100 towns now. That exercise is still a work-in-progress. By the way, we still don’t know the epidemiological roots of the 1994 Surat plague virus.

That most construction in India happens without a disaster audit is another scary anomaly that apparently scares no one. Statistics like these will be taken seriously only when NDMA is fully autonomous, has a separate budget, and is considered powerful enough to receive ministry cooperation.

shishir.gupta@expressindia.com