A high level Indian delegation headed by Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju is participating in the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR) at Cancun, Mexico from May 22-26, 2017. While presenting the Country Statement yesterday, Shri Kiren Rijiju briefed about the steps taken by India, after the adoption of the Sendai Framework. He said that in June 2016, Prime Minister of India launched the National Disaster Management Plan which aligns with the Sendai priorities. He said that, at Regional level, India had hosted the first Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction after the adoption of Sendai Framework in November 2016, which brought together more than 50 countries from the Asia-Pacific and adopted the Asia Regional Plan for the implementation of Sendai Framework.The Minister said that, through strengthening statistical capacity, India is putting in place systems for monitoring progress and taking practical steps towards achievement of Sendai targets.
He said that, with regards to Target A, India is analyzing the patterns of disaster mortality, both spatially and temporally, for different hazards and taking focused, urgent steps to reduce preventable deaths. India is on course towards achieving Target E of the Sendai framework pertaining to development of plans and strategies by 2020, he added. Shri Kiren Rijiju said that on 7th May, 2017, India had launched South Asia Geostationary Communication Satellite with an aim to support and improve communication, weather forecasting, natural resource mapping, disaster information transfer etc. among the South Asian countries, which demonstrates India's strong sense of commitment towards Target F and G. We are also mainstreaming Sendai principles in the national flagship programmes, he added.Shri Kiren Rijiju said that DRR is a work in progress and in this respect we look for opportunities to collaborate with other countries, learn from their experiences and share what we have learned through ours work.The Minister held bilateral meetings on the sidelines of GPDRR with Indonesia and Mongolia and also met representatives of civic societies from India who are attending GPDRR.
In one of the session on ‘Ensuring Risk Resilient Critical Infrastructure’, Dr. P. K. Mishra, Additional Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister highlighted the need to focus on critical infrastructure since much of the disaster related loss is due to damage to critical infrastructure. He said that the damage to physical and social infrastructure disrupts economic and social activities, which leads to hardship and distress, particularly for the poor and handicapped and adversely affects livelihood of large number of people.Dr. P. K. Mishra also spoke about the Issues and challenges in DRR of critical infrastructure, such as lack of awareness, wrong perception of high cost and less urgency, lack of skill and knowledge in Risk Assessments methods, Governance and institutional structure to follow disaster resilient norms in development of infrastructure; measures to ensure risk resilient infrastructure by mainstreaming DRR and better understanding of risk, risk metrics, indicators of sustainability.He highlighted India’s role in International cooperation such as Recent Asian Ministerial Conference on DRR in New Delhi and spoke in detail on Indian Initiative of forming a coalition on risk resilient infrastructure. He said that the proposed “coalition” will address the most pressing needs in infrastructure development and help us create a knowledge base that will benefit all countries. It will focus on four thematic areas - understanding of risk in infrastructure sectors; better standards of design, operations and maintenance, enforcement, regulation; financing of disaster resilient infrastructure and mechanisms to support recovery in infrastructure sectors, he added.