Disasters: the notified calamities and the warning chain

Prelims and MainsCurrent affairs on this: Extreme weather, monsoon and forecasting

The Disaster Management Act, 2005 created a three tier authority: the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) under the Prime Minister, State authorities under Chief Ministers and District authorities under Collectors, with the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) as the trained force. Money flows from two funds: the National Disaster Response Fund, paid fully by the Centre, and the State Disaster Response Funds, which the Centre funds 75 per cent, and 90 per cent for the Northeast and Himalayan States, on the Finance Commission's formula. Relief from the funds is only for notified calamities: the twelve of 2005, cyclone, drought, earthquake, fire, flood, tsunami, hailstorm, landslide, avalanche, cloudburst, pest attack, and frost and cold wave, joined by heat wave and lightning in August 2026 on the Sixteenth Finance Commission's advice. The warning chain runs from forecasters through the authorities to the public; its weak link is the last mile.

• Who forecasts what: the India Meteorological Department (IMD) for weather, cyclones and heat (colour coded green, yellow, orange, red); the Central Water Commission for river floods; the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) for tsunami and ocean states; the Geological Survey of India for landslides; the Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment for avalanches. IMD issues impact based heatwave warnings by district twice a day, stating the expected impact and the action to take, and scores every district's heat vulnerability from 0 to 1 in its Hazard and Vulnerability Atlas.
• IMD's heat wave criteria: a station is in heat wave when the maximum reaches 40°C in the plains, 37 on the coast or 30 in the hills, and the departure from normal is 4.5 to 6.4°C (severe above 6.4), or when the actual maximum reaches 45°C (severe at 47).
• The public alert layer: SACHET, the Common Alerting Protocol platform of the NDMA, sends location based alerts by cell broadcast and SMS; Doppler radars and Mission Mausam are the forecasting upgrades.
• Two funds, two purposes: the State Disaster Response Fund pays for relief after a notified calamity; the State Disaster Mitigation Fund pays for work that reduces risk before one. A hazard outside the notified list can be declared a local disaster by a State, but funded only from 10 per cent of the annual allocation, which is where heat sat for two decades.
• The 2005 Act was amended in 2025 to create Urban Disaster Management Authorities for State capitals and large cities, a national database and State disaster response forces on the NDRF model.
• The Sendai Framework 2015 to 2030 sets the global targets, on mortality, affected people, economic loss and infrastructure damage, that India reports against; the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, launched by India in 2019, is its international initiative.

Mains: India's disaster system was built for the twelve calamities of 2005 while its deaths came from heat, lightning and urban flooding; the 2026 addition of heat and lightning shows that the list, not the force, is where reform happens, and urban flooding is still outside it.

Further reading: The Disaster Management (Amendment) Bill, 2024 (PRS India) · Early Warnings for All (WMO)

See also: Mission Mausam · Heat Action Plans