I had been an active participant in the Government of India's crisis/disaster management organisation in my capacity as head of operations of the navy for three years and thence as head of joint services operation in the newly formed Integrated Defence Headquarter in 2002.
On one of the TV debates yesterday-a more respectable one, where the anchor was not screaming or hogging time on the limited debate-a supreme court lawyer who appeared to be well informed, articulated some home truth. He referred to many disasters that he was associated with for mitigation measures, including the last tsunami; lamented the total absence of capability and capacity of senior bureaucrats to handle them and pleaded that the entire operation be handed over to the Military. He was right on every count,but let us park the issue of the Military for the time being.
No Govt organisation in India including the police have a culture to create facilities to monitor and control situations such as natural calamities, emergencies including hi-jacks of Aircraft. Those that have graduated from the rudimentary to a time expired model have little or no capability to sustain operations. The Govt still has the process that works on written orders issued and forgotten, no drills to refine processes in 'peace time' and little emphasis on updating records of personnel expected to react.That, on many occasions, the entire list of members of the crisis response team, which is drawn from multiple sources of the Govt,was out of date and their emergency contacts unavailable, cannot be disputed. Since there is no culture of manning operations Rooms 24/7 and 365 days in almost all civilian organisations,just rounding up the right people around a table, was a herculean task. This is equally disastrous in Hi jack situations as also with natural calamities such as earth quake, which has no warning mechanism as yet. Consequent delays in action have caused considerable embarrassment and damage to life - a fact that would never be discussed in public, as there is no system of debriefing and lessons learnt in organisations chaired by the senior most bureaucrat of the Govt.
The Military, on the other hand, mans an ops room at every level of operations and the data exchange is almost real time. The rapidity of data flow including live pictures makes it eminently suited for emergencies. Secure communication,data transfer and built in redundancy make the Military in India most suited to handle all emergencies.
The only area of inadequacy in the current situation, is financial and other powers for mobilization of resources vested in the civilian bureaucracy and political leadership. The true potential of the Military thus remains unexplored in this country.
Ironically in every such emergency it is the Military or para military force which delivers in the disaster effected zone.
Even when new structures are created such as National Disaster Management Authority(NDMA) the Military, as in all other decision making structures, is sidelined to a peripheral role. It may be true that the first NDMA was indeed led by a former Chief but that is more a proforma appointment to acknowledge the services rendered by an individual rather than recognize the potential of the force as a whole.
So what can we do to make our emergency /crisis management more effective and institutionally strong. Allow the the entire operation to be coordinated and conducted by CDS(when in place) or CISC. For this necessary ordinance/legislation need to be passed to empower the Armed forces for the limited duration of operations.
Frequent drills are necessary to fine tune and refine procedures. Participation of the entire machinery of civilian and political leadership should be made mandatory without which the whole exercise would be futile.
Finally, debrief and lessons learnt have to be acted upon by Central and State authorities with clear accountability at the appropriate level of the Govt.
While accepting that such a model does not exist currently and that such integrated systems fail more due to civil-military tensions and ignorance of capabilities, I make an appeal to try it at least in disaster/crisis situations which are war like conditions. This needs empowerment of the Military and independence of execution as in war conditions. No harm trying; but not half heartedly.
On one of the TV debates yesterday-a more respectable one, where the anchor was not screaming or hogging time on the limited debate-a supreme court lawyer who appeared to be well informed, articulated some home truth. He referred to many disasters that he was associated with for mitigation measures, including the last tsunami; lamented the total absence of capability and capacity of senior bureaucrats to handle them and pleaded that the entire operation be handed over to the Military. He was right on every count,but let us park the issue of the Military for the time being.
No Govt organisation in India including the police have a culture to create facilities to monitor and control situations such as natural calamities, emergencies including hi-jacks of Aircraft. Those that have graduated from the rudimentary to a time expired model have little or no capability to sustain operations. The Govt still has the process that works on written orders issued and forgotten, no drills to refine processes in 'peace time' and little emphasis on updating records of personnel expected to react.That, on many occasions, the entire list of members of the crisis response team, which is drawn from multiple sources of the Govt,was out of date and their emergency contacts unavailable, cannot be disputed. Since there is no culture of manning operations Rooms 24/7 and 365 days in almost all civilian organisations,just rounding up the right people around a table, was a herculean task. This is equally disastrous in Hi jack situations as also with natural calamities such as earth quake, which has no warning mechanism as yet. Consequent delays in action have caused considerable embarrassment and damage to life - a fact that would never be discussed in public, as there is no system of debriefing and lessons learnt in organisations chaired by the senior most bureaucrat of the Govt.
The Military, on the other hand, mans an ops room at every level of operations and the data exchange is almost real time. The rapidity of data flow including live pictures makes it eminently suited for emergencies. Secure communication,data transfer and built in redundancy make the Military in India most suited to handle all emergencies.
The only area of inadequacy in the current situation, is financial and other powers for mobilization of resources vested in the civilian bureaucracy and political leadership. The true potential of the Military thus remains unexplored in this country.
Ironically in every such emergency it is the Military or para military force which delivers in the disaster effected zone.
Even when new structures are created such as National Disaster Management Authority(NDMA) the Military, as in all other decision making structures, is sidelined to a peripheral role. It may be true that the first NDMA was indeed led by a former Chief but that is more a proforma appointment to acknowledge the services rendered by an individual rather than recognize the potential of the force as a whole.
So what can we do to make our emergency /crisis management more effective and institutionally strong. Allow the the entire operation to be coordinated and conducted by CDS(when in place) or CISC. For this necessary ordinance/legislation need to be passed to empower the Armed forces for the limited duration of operations.
Frequent drills are necessary to fine tune and refine procedures. Participation of the entire machinery of civilian and political leadership should be made mandatory without which the whole exercise would be futile.
Finally, debrief and lessons learnt have to be acted upon by Central and State authorities with clear accountability at the appropriate level of the Govt.
While accepting that such a model does not exist currently and that such integrated systems fail more due to civil-military tensions and ignorance of capabilities, I make an appeal to try it at least in disaster/crisis situations which are war like conditions. This needs empowerment of the Military and independence of execution as in war conditions. No harm trying; but not half heartedly.
