In the context of public policy, an event or occurrence can be termed as a crisis

situation if it poses a threat to human life and property or causes or threatens to

cause large-scale disruption of normal life.
This emergency situation may arise suddenly or it may be an outcome of a
simmering problem or issue, which was not nipped in the bud. A crisis may
degenerate into a disaster if it is not properly managed resulting in avoidable
loss of human life and property on a large scale.
drawn upon international declarations and best practices. The Yokahama
Declaration of 1994, enunciated during the International Decade for Natural
Disaster Reduction signaled a radical shift in disaster management:
.The Declaration elucidates how prevention and mitigation are the keys to
minimize, if not prevent, distress caused by natural disasters and thus form the
bedrock of integrated disaster management.
influenced by the principles underlying the Yokahama Declaration and the
subsequent Hyogo Framework of Action, in recommending a comprehensive
prevention and mitigation strategy, with the ultimate goals of protecting people
and structures from disasters and increasing the effectiveness of response and
recovery.
Crises can be classified into the following categories: (i) Crises caused by acts of
nature. These can further be divided into the following sub-categories:
a. Climatic events: cyclones and storms (associated sea erosion), floods and
drought and b. Geological events: earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides and
avalanches; (ii) Crises caused by environmental degradation and disturbance of
the ecological balance; (iii) Crises caused by accidents. These, again, can be
further classified into: industrial and nuclear mishaps and fire related accidents;
(iv) Crises caused by biological activities: public health crises, epidemics etc; (v)
Crises caused by hostile elements: war, terrorism, extremism, insurgency etc;
(vi) Crises caused by disruption/failure of major infrastructure facilities including
communication systems, large-scale strikes etc; and (vii) Crises caused by large
crowds getting out of control.
It is also necessary to recognize that often a crisis does not emerge suddenly; it
has a life cycle, which may take days, months or even decades to develop
depending on its causative factors. A crisis, therefore, needs to be examined in
terms of its management cycle that would enable us to anticipate the crisis,
prevent and mitigate it to the extent possible and deal with the crisis situation as
it emerges. This life cycle of crisis management may be divided broadly in three
phases - pre-crisis, during crisis and post crisis.
Knowledge plays an important role in disaster reduction. The traditional
knowledge available with the communitity has to be used along with knowledge
acquired through research and past experiences.

The Eleventh Finance Commission provided an amount of Rs. 11007.59 crores for
the Calamity Relief Fund (CRF) for the period 2000-2005. Besides, a further
amount of Rs. 8041 crores was spent under the National Calamity Contingency
Fund (NCCF).
Several cross-country studies have shown that investment in disaster prevention
and mitigation is highly cost effective: for example, every dollar spent on
mitigation saves three to five dollars on relief and rehabilitation 10 .
Unfortunately, long-term benefits of crisis prevention and mitigation have not
been duly factored into our planning and administrative systems.
Climate change is defined as a statistically significant variation in either the
mean state of the climate or in its variability, persisting for an extended period
(typically decades or even longer). Climate change may be due to natural
internal processes or external forces, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in
the composition of the atmosphere or in land use 20 .
The Indian Constitution has delineated specific roles for the Union and State
Governments. However, the subject of disaster management does not find
mention in any of the three lists in the Seventh Schedule of the Indian
Constitution.
What should a law on crisis management provide? 4.2.2.1 The experience from
past disasters and the prospect of more disasters/crisis, demand a holistic and
an agile system for dealing with crisis/disasters. This would require strengthening
of the existing legal framework, removal of loopholes, wherever they exist,
ensuring an effective coordination mechanism and an administrative structure
with unity of command and well defined responsibilities at all levels. 4.2.2.2 The
traditionally used definition of the word disaster and its association with natural
calamities is limited in scope. With rapid economic development, man-made
disasters pose equally grave threats to all life, property and environment.
Moreover, man-made disasters are preventable and therefore what needs to be
tackled is crisis and not disaster. Every disaster is a crisis, but every crisis may
not lead to a disaster. Focus should be on management of crises so that their
degeneration into a disaster is prevented. 4.2.2.3 The multidisciplinary nature of
crisis/disaster management, its large canvass spreading from preparedness to
rehabilitation and evaluation, and its widespread impact, which require resources
to be drawn from different levels of government, means that a totally centralized
or totally decentralized mechanism would be ineffective. It is best if certain
functions of disaster management are centralized while others are decentralized
down to the lowest level. 4.2.2.4 Immediate rescue and relief should be the
responsibility of the level of government closest to the affected population. This
logically has to be the district administration and the local self-governments. The
same argument also holds good for the rehabilitation efforts. The district
administration is part of the State Government and the primary responsibility for
managing any disaster is with the State Governments. The resources of states
being limited they seek and get assistance from the Union Government. This
arrangement of bottom-up responsibilities regarding implementation is

appropriate and has worked well in the past and should not be disturbed. 4.2.2.5
On the other hand, disaster management planning requires wider perspective
and expertise. Developments in science and technology should be used for
mitigating the adverse impacts of disasters and have to be studied, researched
and updated. Specialized manpower and equipment for dealing with disasters
also needs to be readily available. A repository of best practices needs to be
created so that these could be replicated, adapted, if necessary and used on
future occasions. National and regional early warning systems need to be
developed and deployed. Moreover, there is the need for implementation of
standard capacity building