The year 2020 has become a hard-hitting year for communities and countries across the globe in terms of disasters. Beginning with health disaster i.e. Covid-19 pandemic, the year has also witnessed natural disasters, which have released catastrophic consequences for the communities worldwide; the case of Odisha is not an exception.
The State of Odisha has been persistently struggling in coping with Covid-19 pandemic since its first positive entry on March 16. Since then, the pandemic has been roaring in the State; the current rising figure has reached 1,06,561 including 503 deceased as on September 1.
Alongside natural disasters have unfortunately threatened the lives and homes of people in the State. The extremely severe cyclonic storm ‘Amphan’ with unleashing heavy rain and high-velocity wind has created devastations in the State on May 20.
In addition, a fatal flood caused by heavy rainfall has thwarted Odisha at the end of August. Thus, the village communities in Odisha are withstanding double disasters: deadly heath disaster i.e. Covid-19 pandemic, and catastrophic climatic disaster i.e. Amphan and flood. The climatic disasters are more painful since the effects of these disasters are mostly unpredicted in nature.
In the event of this health disaster and climatic disaster and their corresponding socioeconomic offshoots, I, as a development sociologist, perceive that the financial packages announced by both Central and State Governments are welcome initiatives.
However, these packages will lose their credibility if these do not reach the affected or downtrodden sections of the community. In other words, these packages will be a meaningful subject to its implementation with immediate effect in letter and spirit. At the same time, it will be really a herculean task on the part of the mere Government to restructure the communities.
Therefore, there is an urgent need for adopting an integrated approach, which will certainly advocate a suggestive framework to handle both health and climatic disasters and their corresponding crisis at the community levels.
This suggestive framework is based on two things: (i) a set of actions and (ii) a set of actors.The set of actions pinpoints certain principles to act upon in an immediate basis especially in the area of: (i) invigorating the processes of contact tracing in particular and community testing in general in order to curb the Covid-19 from the community; (ii) relocating the flood affected households and shifting them to a safe place for their immediate restoration; (iii) identifying the availability and condition of health and household infrastructure in terms of medical institutes comprising physicians, para-health workers, and health equipment and household infrastructure comprising polythene sheets, for example, for immediate restoration especially for flood-affected households; (iv) addressing and distributing the immediate domestic needs of the affected households located in urban, rural, and tribal areas; (v) adhering seriously to the stock and availability of raw materials (for example, grocery, vegetables etc.) for domestic consumption; (vi) transporting of these raw materials and allied domestic provisions including health and household requirements without any interruption; (vii) supporting local actions to prevent, prepare and respond to both health and climatic disasters; and (viii) finally, preparing action plans for immediate post-health disaster and post-climatic disaster situations.
The set of actors is imperative in order to undertake the above set of actions. The set of actors basically comprises five categories. First, the role of Government is paramount since it has to generate and invigorate different policies and their implementation.
Second, the private sector has to play a proactive role in the form of a supportive hand especially in the process of policy implementation. Third, the role of civil society can be quite crucial. The civil society organizations can act as facilitating wings for different plans and programmes of the Government. Fourth, the role of the media is very powerful and influential. It portrays the trajectory of raw realities caused by both health and climatic disasters. It serves as a link between Government and the people and plays a critical role in identifying the issues and developing awareness at the grassroots levels.
Fifth, the role of community-based organizations (CBOs) including youth clubs, women's associations so on, and so forth is very significant since these CBOs better understand the community than the non-community level actors.
Thus, the coordinated and collective action among the actors is very crucial in order to enhance preparedness and mitigation strategies for health disaster and climatic disaster.The communities especially at the ground level are always considered as the worst victims of any disasters. The hard-hitting health disaster and climatic disaster have certainly collapsed the communities as well as their socio-economic conditions, especially at the grassroots level. Therefore, an appropriate framework for mitigation and management is the need of the hour.
I am sure, with the active adoption and functioning of the above suggestive framework, the health disaster as well as the climatic disaster and their costs will gradually disappear, contributing to the resurrection of a just society. https://ssl.gstatic.com/ui/v1/icons/mail/images/cleardot.gif
(The author is a development sociologist, Department of Sociology, Central University of Odisha, Koraput)