Development and Disaster Management

A Study of the Northeastern States of India

Amita Singh, Milap Punia, Nivedita P. Haran, Thiyam Bharat Singh, Amita Singh, Milap Punia, Nivedita P. Haran, Thiyam Bharat Singh

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9789811084850
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book highlights the relationship between disasters and development through a socio-cultural study of human geography and governance institutions. It studies the cause, context and consequences of disasters in one of the most fragile Himalayan regions in India. The book establishes the fact that disaster management is built within the framework of good governance, without which it has no meaning. For lack of effective and responsive governance, development has lagged behind and even though the frequency of disasters has been increasing, little is being done to redesign developmental frameworks to prevent ensuing losses. Besides, the near absence of governmental support during recurrent disasters, communities have cumulatively become reservoirs of innovations to cope up with disasters. The resilience plans need not follow implanted models but may be cost effective only if they apply a bottom up approach. Just as the region is culturally diverse so are the challenges encountered by local communities in terms of generating resilience to every disaster. Despite more than a decade of the Disaster Management Act (DMA) of 2005, most of the states in this northeastern fringe of India continue to wait for its implementation beyond mere structures and offices. The book suggests that urgent action is required in accordance with the DMA 2005 towards inter-agency coordination, proactive participation of local governance, mobilization of Community based Organizations (CBOs) and curriculum based training in every academic and technical institution. Governments of these northeastern states of India should establish accountability of State Disaster Management Authorities and inspire them to participate proactively with communities for an effective resilience building in the region.

Part IDisasters, Management and Development

© The Author(s) 2018

Amita Singh, Milap Punia, Nivedita P. Haran and Thiyam Bharat Singh (eds.)Development and Disaster Managementhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8485-0_1

Begin Abstract

India’s Northeast: Disasters, Development and Community Resilience

Amita Singh¹

(1)

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

Amita Singh

Email: [email protected]

Keywords

Developmental planningTransdisciplinary approachResilienceVulnerability

Professor of Law and Governance at JNU and PI of Disaster Research Programme (now a Special Centre for Disaster Research at JNU).

End Abstract

The Developmental Deficit and the Weakening Community Resilience to Disasters

Nature will remain pristinely transparent about its cyclic regularity and would continue to behave the way it should from time immemorial. If man could be God, nature would be his equipment to be used at will. But, this could only be true in sheer romanticism of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s ‘The desire of the moth for the star, of the night for the morrow’, so the policy maker’s world is an encounter with realities, an exploration of causes and a search for solutions. The luxury of poetry and an extended bereavement of destruction are counterproductive to the idea of governance.

Therefore, the coming of excess rainfall, floods, landslides, hurricanes, earthquakes or tsunamis is simply natural occurrences, but when these natural processes damage and destroy life and property, they become ‘disasters’. The task of the government is to prevent such hazardous natural processes from turning into disasters. This suggests that proper scientific studies should identify vulnerable zones, share research with policy makers and help in appropriate housing, roads, medical preparedness, availability of ambulances for timely evacuation, rescue and relief. The ability of local administration to help the community bounce back to normalcy at the earliest is successful disaster management. Since appropriate houses, roads, medical support, community training in relief and rescue, and administrative accountability cannot occur during disasters, it is an indispensable imperative of the pre-disaster preparedness stage. It is therefore necessary to explore if the North-Eastern Region is disaster prepared? A comparison with other states could bring the truth out more appropriately.

In a comparative framework, one can safely say that land is the only resource which the north-eastern communities have as industries, institutions and knowledge hubs are quite invisible or absent. Thus, the land area of the north-east is taken as a primary unit of study over which its population dividend or its human resource and its agriculture-based livelihood suggest the nature of developmental initiatives required in the region. How much of this land is forest and what percentage is being used for agriculture suggest the developmental challenges which this region encounters. A comparison is being made with the adjoining West Bengal and Bihar on one side and highly forested, quarried and dammed states like Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Himachal Pradesh on the other hand. The data from Delhi are only brought into show the truth about an age-old ‘Delhi Centric Development’ in India. This paper does not take account of rapid population increase in some states due to cross-border infiltration, intrusion or migration as this would divert the focus from disaster management. Sikkim has also not been included in a comparative frame since the focus has been on vulnerable regions where floods, landslides and earthquakes converge most frequently.

Of the total north-eastern land area of seven states, 101,248 square miles which is almost 7% of India’s land area (2011 Census) has only 3.7% of the country’s population and the smallest road network in the country of 8480 kms only (see Table 1). It is hardly understandable that Delhi with a land area of mere 573 share miles. has a road network of 28,508 kms. This explains the lack of supplies of both information, infrastructure and governance support to the larger north-east habitats which continue to drag much insulated community support to encounter disasters. This also explains why the two most participative and vibrant states of the north-east, i.e. Assam and Manipur which are one of the biggest human resource providers to the rest of India, are also the most backward states in the country with an NSDP capita INR ranking of 31 and 30, respectively, ironically just above the last rank 32 of Bihar. Tripura which is undergoing a population explosion has the worst and the highest unemployment rate.

Table 1

Comparative economic indicators

(Source Economic Statistical Organisation Punjab Central Statistical Organisation, New Delhi STATE WISE DATA as on 29 February 2016, http://​www.​esopb.​gov.​in/​static/​PDF/​GSDP/​Statewise-Data/​statewisedata.​pdf. Report of Fifth Annual Employment-Unemployment Survey (2015–2016), Ministry of Labour & Employment, p. 120. Retrieved 24 November 2016 and The Central Electricity Authority 2016, Executive Summary. Available at http://​www.​cseindia.​org/​userfiles/​factsheet-north-east-india.​pdf. Retrieved November 2016)

S. No.	Eco. indicators	Bihar	Odisha	WB	Delhi	HP	AP	Assam	Manipur	Meghalaya	Mizoram	Nagaland	Tripura
1	GDP lakh crores INR	6.32 LCr	4.12 LCr	10.94 LCr	6.22 LCr	1.24 LCr	19,492 Cr	2.58 LCr	14,324 Cr	27,305 Cr.	11,458 Cr.	17,727 Cr.	26,810 Cr.
2	GSDP per capita income INR/income rank in 33 of all states/UT	33,954 rank 33 (lowest)	71,184 rank 27	87,672 rank 21	275,174 rank 2	147,330 rank 10	110,217 rank 17	60,621 rank 30	58,442 rank 31	75,156 rank 26	97,687 rank 19	89,607 rank 20	77,358 rank 25
3	Unemploy. rank 33 of all states/UT	14	17	25	–	04	06	13	16	19	24	07	1 (worst in employment rate)
4	Road network in kms.	19,928	23,8034	92,023	28,508	–	1992	2836	959	810	927	494	400
5	Per capita electricity consumption in kilowatts per hour	117.48	837.55	506.13	1447.72	1144.94	718.57	240.28	352.86	690.20	469.38	268.49	296.05

The fragile land of the north-eastern states is mostly hills, forests, valley and plateaus (see Table 2). The population increase over this land is comparable to the rest of the mainland states. Yet, land is the most contestable issue over its alleged misuse by policy planners. There are more than eight dams already built over its many rivers. More than 84.34% of its population resides in villages practicing various forms of agricultural practices like Jhum (shifting cultivation) which covers an area of 386,300 ha/year, and more than five lakh families depend upon this cultivation (Patel 2013). Besides Jhum, the rural north-east communities also undertake wet rice and Aji systems in which they grow rice and millets with fish in deep waters. They have also been practicing an agri-horti-silvipastoral system unique for every community over the hills. The government tried to popularize the terrace land cultivation, but the support from the government in terms of input costs of soil testing, fertilizers and crop rotation did not follow as a result of which this terrace cultivation remains almost an undersupplied livelihood arrangement of the small and marginal farmers who constitute more than 78.92% of agricultural communities. With all these shortcomings of an apathetic governance and a complete dependence on agriculture, the north-east is able to produce only 1.5% of the country’s food grains which is not even sufficient enough to feed its own self. Their major livelihood comes from agriculture, and almost the whole of its farming is organic yet no government has ever tried to seek certification for these farmers to give them access to international markets. Women are the most vibrant and deserving community leaders in the rural countryside of the north-east. The sustenance of Manipur on Ema Markets (or Mothers’ Market) which is one of the most vibrant women led market places, an enduring location for local farm and kitchen produce besides a hang out location for all motivated women to showcase their creative art products, designs and home based inventions. This exponential resilience demonstrated in the Manipur’s local culture is subsequently reflected in their relatively better sex ratio, a higher number of women teachers, medical practititoners as well as agricultural workers. Ironically, most agricultural practices which they master are getting distanced from them due to lack of micro-credit and other support systems. The national and state level IITs and agricultural training institutes have not been able to connect with north-eastern communities and empower their skills and mutually understand and learn from their indigenous knowledge (Table 3).

Table 2

North-east states: land and population dividend

(Source Census of India 2011, GoI, New Delhi)

S. No.	States	Land area sq. km	Forest area (%)	Pop. 2011 census	Pop. increase (%)	Sex ratio 2011 census
1	AP	83,743	80.59	1,383,727	26.03	938
2	Assam	78,438	35.28	31,205,576	17.07	958
3	Manipur	22,327	76.10	2,855,794	24.50	985
4	Meghalaya	22,429	77.08	2,966,889	27.95	989
5	Mizoram	21,081	90.38	1,097,206	23.48	976
6	Nagaland	16,579	78.68	1,978,502	0.58	931
7	Tripura	10,486	75.01	3,673,917	14.84	960

Table 3

Comparative infrastructure in higher and professional education

(Source Key results of AISHE, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Higher Education, New Delhi 2013, and GPI data from report of McKinsey Global Institute, ‘The power of parity, how advancing women’s equality can add $12 trillion to global growth’, September 2015)

S. No.	States	Colleges/lakh pop.	GER in higher ed. M/F/total	GPI in higher ed. all cat./SC/ST	Total universities central/state
1	Bihar	649/6	14.7/11.21/13.1	0.76/0.57/0.76	01/14
2	Odisha	1089/23	18.4/14.3/16...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• Part I. Disasters, Management and Development
• Part II. Vulnérabilité Studies
• Part III. Accomplishing Community Resilience
• Back Matter