VidBodh AcademyThe art and science of civil services preparation
Student login

Environment › Climate science › Extreme weather

Extreme weather and disasters

India's list of notified natural calamities runs to 14, heatwaves and lightning having joined it in 2026, and the list is not a label: it decides which fund a State may draw on and how much of it. The hazards fit that rulebook poorly. Bihar's Ganga crossed its highest recorded flood level in a season 27 per cent short of rain, and a parliamentary committee found no study tying climate change to Himalayan forest fires.

UPSC has asked

  • Prelims 2025: recommendations of the Fifteenth Finance Commission

How India pays for a disaster

  • A notified natural calamity is one for which a State may draw on its State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) for relief and reconstruction.
  • A hazard outside the list can be notified by a State itself as a local disaster, but funded only from a capped slice of the same money, 10 per cent of the annual allocation.
  • The response fund pays for relief after a disaster; the State Disaster Mitigation Fund (SDMF) pays for work that reduces risk before one.
  • A Finance Commission is constituted under Article 280 of the Constitution and recommends how central taxes and grants are shared with the States.
  • The Sixteenth Finance Commission recommended ₹2.04 lakh crore for State disaster funds for 2026-31, split between the two funds.

How much of India is exposed to heat

  • An assessment cited with the 2026 notification puts over 57 per cent of districts at high to very high heat risk.
  • Those districts are home to about three quarters of Indians.
  • Disaster finance was built for sudden events such as floods and cyclones, and heat is a slow hazard.

How a river floods without rain

  1. Upstream rain

    Rain far upstream, around Allahabad and Varanasi, sends high discharge down the Ganga

  2. Record levels

    The main river runs at or above its highest flood level (HFL), the highest it has been recorded at that gauge

  3. Backwater effect

    Tributaries such as the Gandak and the Punpun cannot discharge into it

  4. Spill

    They spill over their own banks instead

  5. Spread

    Silt raised beds and flat plains carry the water far across low lying land

From The Indian Express, 10 and 12 September 2026
  • Embankments cut rivers off from their floodplains.
  • Many people live on diara, the low riverine tracts that lie within the river's reach.

The Farakka question

  • The Farakka Barrage diverts Ganga water into the Bhagirathi–Hooghly to keep Kolkata port navigable.
  • Bihar blames it for trapping silt upstream, a contested claim.
  • The 1996 India–Bangladesh Ganga Water Sharing Treaty, which shares the lean season flow at Farakka, expires in December 2026.

Why the two Himalayas burn differently

Western Himalaya
  • Pre-monsoon heat
  • Pine needles on the forest floor
Eastern Himalaya
  • Dry air
  • Burning linked to shifting cultivation
From the Press Information Bureau release of 7 August 2026 on the committee's 412th report

Watching for fire

  • Forest fire alerts in India come from the Forest Survey of India (FSI), read off satellite passes.
  • India relies on foreign satellites, which leave two windows a day unwatched.

What has happened

  1. 10 Sep 2026

    The Ganga crossed its highest flood level at Patna and Bhagalpur even though Bihar's rain since 1 June was 27 per cent below normal.

    • September rain was 31 per cent above normal and fell in heavy local spells.
    • Water released from Nepal was not the main cause, so the fix is basin wide rather than bilateral.

    The Indian Express, 10 Sep 2026: Bihar is flooded despite poor rains. Nepal is not the reason (opens in a new tab) · The Indian Express, 12 Sep 2026: Bihar floods underline need for basin-wide cooperation (editorial) (opens in a new tab)

  2. 27 Aug 2026

    Heatwaves and lightning became notified natural calamities, taking the list to 14, on a Sixteenth Finance Commission recommendation announced in the Lok Sabha on 4 August 2026.

    • Heat was earlier only a local disaster, so a State may now spend its full response fund on it.

    The Hindu, 27 Aug 2026: Heatwaves and lightning added to notified natural calamities (opens in a new tab)

  3. 7 Aug 2026

    The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change, in its 412th report, found no study linking climate change to rising Himalayan forest fires.

    • It asked for an Indian geostationary satellite instead of the passes now relied on.
    • Only about 12.5 per cent of FSI alerts in Uttarakhand were real fires, which risks alert fatigue.

    PIB, 7 Aug 2026: Parliamentary committee report on Himalayan forest fires (opens in a new tab)