BY- DR. PIYOOSH TAUTELA-

The state of Uttarakhand was born not just from political and social aspirations, but from the crucible of disaster. The devastating landslides of Malpa and Okhimath (1998) and the Chamoli Earthquake (1999) were more than geological events; these were formative tragedies that exposed the lethal apathy of a distant, unresponsive administration.

For the region’s leadership and its masses, the harrowing delays in rescue and the near-total absence of post-disaster rehabilitation and restoration were not abstract policy failures but harsh, indelible, lived realities.

This raw, collective exposure to human suffering and administrative paralysis became the unlikely bedrock upon which Uttarakhand’s pioneering approach to disaster management was cast.

Unlike any other state in the Union, Uttarakhand did not stumble into disaster management; it was a foundational principle, a solemn promise to its people. This depiction chronicles the state’s remarkable and often paradoxical journey in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)—from its celebrated beginnings and innovative grassroots initiatives to a contemporary state of institutional amnesia and strategic drift.

More importantly, it is critical to assesses the missteps so as to lay out a comprehensive, actionable “Way Forward,” proposing a Vision 2047 where resilience is not an externally funded, episodic project, but the intrinsic, non-negotiable fabric of governance and society.

The Golden Era: A Homegrown, People-Centric Revolution (2000-2012)

Political Will and Institutional Genius

The new state’s leadership, their conscience seared by the cost of inaction, made a revolutionary decision: decision to establish India’s first dedicated Ministry and Department for Disaster Management. This was no knee-jerk reaction but a strategic choice, consciously rejecting the archaic, post-facto “relief” model.

The very fact that the state never had a “Relief Commissioner” was a profound symbolic and practical departure from the national norm, signalling a philosophical shift from managing handouts to building capacity.

The masterstroke of this era was the establishment of the Disaster Mitigation and Management Centre (DMMC). Conceived as an autonomous body, it was designed to be the state’s agile brain trust — a hub for applied research, relentless advocacy, capacity building, and, most critically, mass awareness. Its autonomy freed it from bureaucratic inertia, allowing it to innovate and execute with speed.

Anchored by forward-thinking projects like the ADB-TA 3379 and later the UNDP’s Disaster Risk Management (DRM) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Programmes, its focus was laser-sharp: build resilience from the ground up, one village, one mason, one mind at a time.

Winning Hearts and Minds: The Art of Grassroots DRR

DMMC operated on a profound truth often missed by top-down technocratic models: compliance follows conviction. True safety could not be enforced by government order; it had to be woven into the cultural fabric and embraced voluntarily by the masses.

This philosophy produced some of the most innovative DRR campaigns in the country:

Vernacular Vanguard

Departing from impenetrable jargon, DMMC created visually rich, linguistically accessible materials, including seminal guides on earthquake-safe construction and retrofitting that spoke the language of the local mason and homeowner.

Piggybacking on Popular Culture

Recognizing that entertainment is the most potent vehicle for education, DMMC produced two legendary, melodious films in vernacular, “Dandi Kaanthi ki God Ma” (on earthquakes) and “Himalaya ki Dhaad” (on landslides). These, along with countless audio-visual jingles, took the message of safety into every home, not as a government warning, but as a shared cultural experience.

Empowering the Last Mile

The initiative translated awareness into action. Holistic Village Disaster Management Plans were co-created with communities, not imposed upon them. Over 2,500 practicing masons were upskilled in earthquake-safe construction, and a formidable cadre of over 16,475 community members was trained in search, rescue, and first aid, creating a decentralized network of credible first responders.

Mainstream Recognition

The production of a nationally released, Censor Board-certified film, “The Silent Heroes,” was the pinnacle of this strategy, proving that DRR could be a subject of compelling, commercially viable, mainstream storytelling.

This was an era defined by intellectual capital, local context, and a deep-seated belief in community empowerment. DMMC’s research was not merely academic; it was actionable, producing vital vulnerability assessments for major towns and the widely circulated and sought-after bilingual newsletter, Apda Prabandhan.

The Great Deluge: Kedarnath 2013 and the Technocratic Capture of a Legacy

A Tragedy of Nature, A Failure of Narrative

The 2013 Kedarnath tragedy was an inflection point. In the ensuing media firestorm, amplified by a critical CAG report, the nuanced, decade-long work of prevention and mitigation was swept away by a simplistic, damning narrative of “government inaction.”

The painstaking progress of DMMC was erased in a single, brutal news cycle, proving that in the face of catastrophic disaster, a weak narrative can obliterate years of strong work.

The Influx of “Big Money” and the Sidelining of “Soft” Power

The aftermath brought a flood of a different kind: massive funding from the World Bank and ADB. This influx, while seemingly a boon, triggered a technocratic capture of the DRR agenda, proving deeply detrimental to the state’s homegrown philosophy.

From Social Resilience to Concrete Slabs

The focus pivoted violently from community capacity building (“software”) to large-scale, high-visibility infrastructure projects (“hardware”).

Resources were diverted to building roads, bridges, and helipads. While not unimportant, this represented a fundamental departure from the core DRR mandate, often duplicating the work of other departments and prioritizing contracts over communities.

The Rise of External Consultants

International advisors and external experts, often with limited understanding of the region’s unique socio-cultural and geo-environmental fabric, became the new arbiters of DRR.

The rich, locally-contextualized data painstakingly curated by DMMC was either ignored or absorbed without credit. A massive, multi-hazard risk assessment of the state was conducted at great expense, but its results were never democratized or made public, rendering the database a high-cost, low-impact digital relic.

Institutional Lobotomy

The final blow was a stunningly myopic government order. Arguing that having two organizations (DMMC and the newly empowered USDMA) was a “misuse of public funds,” the government performed an institutional lobotomy.

It dismantled the DMMC, the state’s DRR brain. Its experienced, nationally-decorated employees were transferred to USDMA, only to be systematically sidelined, humiliated, and ultimately forced out, creating an exodus of expertise.

In one fell swoop, the state amputated its own institutional memory. The very experts who had earned the nation’s highest accolades — the National Geoscience Award and the Subash Chandra Bose Apada Prabandhan Puruskar — were deemed surplus to requirements.

(  In the public interest  this article is borrowed from Risk Prevention Mitigation and Management Forum with thanks .Hindi version of this follows..ADMIN)