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Disaster Management in Indian Railway

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Summary

Disaster Management Act 2005 defines disaster management as below:

Text of the circular

Janardan Prasad
Sr Professor/IRIMEE
Disaster Management in Indian Railways
An Introduction

Background
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
World’s fourth largest railway network 

Route length of 72,038 km and total track length of 1,23,236 km 

More than 13,452 passenger trains and 9,141 goods trains daily, from 
7,318 stations across India 

The safety of railway operation and safety and security of the millions 
availing the railway services are of paramount importance. 

The ‘Citizen Charter’ of the Indian Railways also spells out the railways’ 
commitment in providing safe and dependable train services. 

There is a need of institutional and coordination mechanism for effective 
Disaster Management.
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Disaster Defined
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
The concept of a Disaster was not adequately and comprehensively defined on 
Indian Railways till 2005. It was accepted that a Disaster situation implies to 
cover only cases of serious train accidents. 

The definition of Disaster was legislated for the first time in the Disaster 
Management Act, 2005 as below:
“disaster” means a catastrophe, mishap, calamity or grave occurrence in any
area, arising from natural or man made causes, or by accident or negligence
which results in substantial loss of life or human suffering or damage to, and
destruction of, property, or damage to, or degradation of, environment, and 
is of such a nature or magnitude as to be beyond the coping capacity of the 
community of the affected area;
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Disaster Defined
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The broad principles of disaster for any department of the 
government changed to the concept of any incident which could not 
be handled alone by that department i.e. if it was beyond the coping 
capacity of a particular department
With this came the concept of the departments of Government of 
India as also the State governments required to join hands to extend 
whatever facilities available with them to provide relief/rescue and 
mitigation on the occurrence of a disaster 
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Disaster Management Defined
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Disaster Management Act 2005 defines disaster management as below:
“disaster management” means a continuous and integrated process of planning, organising, 
coordinating and implementing measures which are necessary or expedient for-
(i) prevention of danger or threat of any disaster;
(ii) mitigation or reduction of risk of any disaster or its severity or consequences;
(iii) capacity-building;
(iv) preparedness to deal with any disaster;
(v) prompt response to any threatening disaster situation or disaster;
(vi) assessing the severity or magnitude of effects of any disaster;
(vii) evacuation, rescue and relief;
(viii) rehabilitation and reconstruction;
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Features of DM Act, 2005
79 sections and 11 chapters.
It ensures effective implementation and monitoring of disaster management plans.
Three tier structural system to manage disasters :
National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA )  headed by Prime Minister-
responsible for laying down the policies, plans and guidelines for disaster management for 
ensuring timely and effective response to disaster at national level, to be assisted by 
National Executive Committee headed by Secretary of the Deptt/ministry of GoI having 
administrative control of Disaster Management  
State Disaster Management Authorities  (SDMA) headed by Chief Ministers (LG for 
Delhi)-responsible for laying down policies and plans for disaster management in the State, 
to be assisted by State Executive Committee headed by  chief Secretary of the State
District Disaster Management Authorities  headed by DM/DC and Co-chaired by 
chairman of local bodies- To act as the district planning, coordinating and implementing body 
for disaster management. It has to take all necessary measures for the purposes of disaster 
management in the district as per the guidelines laid down by the National Authority and the 
State Authority.
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Features of DM Act, 2005
Constitution of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) 
Constitution of National Disast

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