India faces many natural hazards, including floods, cyclones, drought etc. But every hazard need not turn into a disaster. By careful planning, capacity building, early warning, community participation, procurement and pre-positioning of necessary equipment and resources, participation of civil society, assigning clear role to the private sector, involving panchayati raj institutions and urban local bodies, rigorous enforcement of techno-legal regime on land use and building regulations etc., significant reductions of losses can be brought about in such events. We have a national policy on disaster management, at http://ndmindia.nic.in/NPDM-101209.pdf

We have created a number of institutions by way of the Disaster Management Act, 2005, which may be seen at http://ndmindia.nic.in/acts-rules/DisasterManagementAct2005.pdf

What more can be done to enhance our preparedness to handle natural disasters?