Rajnath Singh approves new disaster management norms

Home minister Rajnath Singh had approved new norms on disaster management to take care of all emergencies arises due to any natural disaster in the country.

Key Highlights

• The main focus of the norms is on countering rumours and not taking complaints of missing persons lightly given the possibility of human trafficking.
• A nodal agency had been designated by Indian Meteorological Department for early warning for cyclone, Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre and Indian National Centre for Oceanic Information Services for Tsunami and Central Water Commission for floods.
• The disasters are categorised in various categories like very harsh type of disaster is categorised as Red, moderate type is categorised as Orange and low type is designated as Yellow.
• The National Crisis Management Committee will take care of all emergency arising due to any natural disaster in the country.
• As per the new norms every state has to organise a special police task force which will take care at the time of immediately calamity and will look for missing persons with regard to the human trafficking angle.
• Shopkeepers, chemists and PDS dealers are strictly advised not to raise prices artificially and not to hoard the commodities after the calamity.
• The disaster victims should get their relief fund through the district Red Cross Society or district chambers of commerce for proper accounting.

In the new norms the alerts under the red stage will be communicated to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) or cabinet secretariat with three-hourly updates or more frequently and orange alerts will be updated after every 12-hours.