Indian Army: Pivotal National Asset for Disaster Response

Introduction

Involvement of the Indian Army as first responder in a disaster situation is continuously on the rise mainly by virtue of its footprint pan India, incredible faith of civil authorities and society in the organization to deliver and their ability to work under adverse conditions. Approach of the Army has also evolved from merely being reactive to more proactive, in coordination with relevant stake holders and infusion of technology in their rescue operations. Army’s expertise and experience in robust field logistics, mobility, effective communication, vast inventory of specialized equipment combined with organizational structure of self-contained columns, personal training and dedication, makes them invaluable asset in any disaster related incident. To effectively meet the aspiration of the Nation during such calamities and humanitarian efforts, the Indian Army needs to always remain fully prepared and continuously keep upgrading its effectiveness and efficiency to respond to such situations.

Types of Disasters

Disaster Management Act 2005 defines  Disaster as “catastrophe, mishap, calamity or grave occurrence in any area, arising from natural or man made causes”. Based upon origin and cause, Disaster can be categorized as Natural or Man made disaster. A Natural disaster is an event which is caused by natural hazard and are generally beyond human control. These can be further divided as Geological disasters originating from movement within earth crust like earthquakes, tsunami, land slides, hydro meteorological disasters caused by hydrological and atmospherical process like floods, draughts, Biological disasters caused by spread of disease carrying organisms like pandemic (COVID 19), epidemics. Man made disasters are caused by human activities or environmental negligence which are preventable, these could be due to environmental degradation like desertification, river pollution or Technological disasters like industrial disaster ( Bhopal Gas Tragedy 1984), nuclear disaster ( Chernobyl disaster 1986), oil spills or these could be politico social disasters like wars, terrorism, mass displacements etc.

Assessment of Scale and Extent of Losses

Assessing detailed disaster losses and damage is an important exercise to evaluate multi sectoral efforts required to normalize the life in affected areas. These could be direct losses like people died and injured, damage to infrastructure which can be physically verified and quantified or it could be indirect losses which have long term economic and social consequences like disruption in services, impact on education, health and other sectors. There are mainly two methods to assess losses, the first one being Post Disaster Need Assessment (PDNA) which is primarily based on quantum of human recovery needs post any disaster. This method is used by internation bodies like UN and the World Bank. The second method is Damage and Loss Assessment ( DaLA) which is based on assessing monetary loss of both physical assets and change in economic flows taking into account various sectors like Social, Industrial and Production, Infrastructure sectors.

Challenges

• The Army has to balance its primary role of National Defence while responding to Disaster Management tasks to ensure that it does not strain its resources especially during major and large-scale disasters. There has been increase in frequency of unpredictable natural calamities and frequent deployment of troops for such contingencies can lead to fatigue and can even impact operational preparedness.
• While the Disaster Management Act came into force in 2005 but it does not explicitly define legal provisions for deployment of the Army and lack specific role and responsibilities during disaster response.
• Specialized equipment and training gap to cater for certain peculiar contingencies like Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN), structural collapses also exist in the Army currently and NDRF equipment to cater for such situations may not always be possible to be transported to affected areas.
• Interoperability amongst various stakeholders and functional entities during disaster response/relief operations in terms of compatibility of equipment, communication, operating procedures can also affect the desired outcome. Inadequate coordination with civil authorities and other agencies like NDRF could delay employment of resources.
• At times, the Army units/establishments themselves may have got impacted by the calamity like October 2023 Sikkim floods, making it difficult for them to divert requisite resources to assist the civil administration and may impede deployment of resources.
• Requisition procedures and protocols, at times, could delay the deployment of resources by the Army although there are well established procedures now to respond without loss of time. However, at times over reliance of the civil administration on the Army rather than utilizing own resources, for whatever reasons, needs to be avoided.
• While social media plays a crucial role to bring in transparency and showcases the positive aspect of role of the Army but at times could be detrimental if any aggrieved party or any small negative incident gets highlighted which could tarnish the work done in good faith. Any controversial media byte/information by unauthorized uniformed personnel can further add to negative public emotions. Disaster response mostly involves highly decentralized task forces working day and night at dispersed locations especially in large scale disasters which brings uniformed personnel close to vulnerable and affected population. Any act of indiscipline even by a single individual can have devastating negative publicity.
• Relief material starts pouring in at incident site from various agencies, while primarily the civil administration is responsible for its distribution, however, more often than not, the Army gets involved due to their physical presence in the affected areas. This could be a sensitive issue as relief material would never be sufficient enough to cater for requirements of entire affected population.

Way Forward

• Macro and Governance Level – The policy guidelines need to be updated regularly based on changing scenarios, technological advancements and picking up best practices from across the globe. International coordination through groupings and Organisation like CDRI (Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure), can help in strengthening our disaster preparedness and response mechanisms.  Adequate investment is required in robust and effective early warning systems along with efficient communication mechanism, evacuation and response plan, down to the remotest areas.  Technological based solutions like mobile application based early warning platforms like Mausam, Meghdoot, can enhance community readiness. Disaster preparedness should be fully integrated into the development and infrastructure projects.  A culture of disaster awareness and  preparedness should be developed at all levels and it should be fully integrated in our formal education system.

• Community and NGOs – They play important role in dealing with the disasters at the grass root level. Community is an  institution in itself and they are well aware of the disaster related dynamics and with seamless integration with government machinery, communities and NGOs can be most effective framework to deal with any disasters. In many places, communities and NGOs have formed various volunteer groups which are trained on dealing with various types of disasters and act as first responders in such situations. Volunteer network of Apda Mitras and Yuva Apda Mitras do train citizens in disaster preparedness at village community level.

Army Specific Recommendations

• The Army’s resources should be deployed only when situation is beyond capacity of the civil administration, keeping in view the time criticality, as also they should be derequisitioned at the earliest when situation stabilizes.
• Seamless coordination with the civil authorities and other stake holders is hallmark of an effective Disaster Management operation. This has to develop during peacetime when plans are drawn taking into account strength and vulnerabilities of each asset and resource. This plan needs to be rehearsed for all possible contingencies to avoid any conflict and confusion during the actual response.
• The Disaster Management training should form part of training curriculum at unit and formation levels and should rehearse contingencies specific to their Area of Responsibility in conjunction with the civil administration and other stake holders. This is more pertinent to anticipated disaster events like monsoon and heavy snow periods. Standard Operating Procedures formulated should be tested and refined, requisite stores and equipment well earmarked and serviced. Being preemptive for such eventualities would pay rich dividends and can save precious lives and property. Joint training, scenario building, mock exercises with other stake holders should be undertaken in preparatory period.
• Infusion of technology should be leveraged to make response more effective. Use of drones, high tech surveillance and AI integrated early warning systems, robotic search and rescue devices, can extend the reach of operations and provide valuable inputs. The Army needs to keep pace with advent of technology, especially dual use, to boost disaster response capabilities.
• To ensure that our deployment, especially in field and mountainous areas is generally safe from disasters, a holistic review needs to be undertaken after examining their vulnerabilities to natural calamities. This would prevent own losses during calamities as also the Army’s resources would be available to be used to mitigate damage done by the disaster in civilian areas. There have been instances when the Army establishments/units themselves have been severely impacted by natural calamities.
• Communication is the first causality during any natural calamity and relief and rescue operations can not progress without reliable communication. Therefore, there is a need to ensure that multiple layers of communication be planned and established to include line, mobile, radio, satellite with redundancy built in. As various agencies have different communication equipment and protocols, this aspect needs to be ironed out during planning phase.
• A post disaster analysis needs to be undertaken and well documented to enable better preparedness for the future. Weaknesses and vulnerabilities so identified should be plugged. Lessons and best practices learnt during disaster response tasks should be shared with the environment. Establishing a Center of Excellence for Disaster Management response would help streamline our response as also it would act as repository for such operations undertaken.
• Managing social media aspect needs to be looked into with more deliberations. Humane stories emerging from disaster response operations should be showcased which would surely enhance image of the Army. At times, units deployed have troops hailing from the affected area, which further boosts the credibility of the Army.

Conclusion

The Indian Army’s commitment to disaster relief and rescue operations is anchored in its functional ethos and military training. The Army would continue to play a key role in disaster situations in spite of having specialized units raised to respond to such eventualities. With real threat of climate change, we would witness more frequent occurrence of natural disasters, while this role may be secondary in nature to the Army, but due to its high probability of occurrence, it demands that the Army remains prepared at all times. Such preparedness does augment our operational preparedness too as also it provides opportunities for the Army to win hearts and minds of people specially residing in areas affected by terrorism and social disharmony. Ideal preparedness for disaster response would involve establishing seamless synergy with the civil administration and other stake holders by complementing and supplementing each other’s capabilities.