The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (UNSDG) -11 which aims to achieve sustainable cities and communities by 2030 focuses under its target No-5 on significant reduction in loss of lives, size of affected people and loss of economy due to disasters .The Covid-19 pandemic has emerged as an unprecedented biological disaster. The Government of India has imposed the National Disaster Management Act 2005 in the country to manage the pandemic. By doing so, the Indian Government has accepted the Covid19 pandemic as a disaster. The Act empowers the Union Government to take over the administration of the country just like that occurs during the imposition of National Emergencies under Indian Constitution. This stringent Act is needed to manage a pandemic of national magnitude. Some other nations have also imposed their national emergency law.
However, this situation should not prevail for longer and normal democratic governance should return. The Union Government must complete the disaster management work sooner by building the recovery and risk- mitigation capacity of the stakeholders and revoke the Disaster Management Act. The disaster management cycle has four phases such as the prevention and risk mitigation planning and its implementation phase before the disaster, preparedness planning and its implementation phase before the disaster, disaster-intervention phase through rescue and relief activities during the disaster and finally the disaster-rehabilitation phase, after the disaster.
As the Covid-19 pandemic is a new biological disaster, there was no mitigation and preparedness plan in the country when it struck us. But next time, the nation should not suffer. The National Disaster Management Act calls for preparation of a National Plan on disaster management.
On the basis of the current experience, the Government of India must come up with a national Covid-19 and other biological disaster risk- mitigation plan, along with plans for creation of necessary institutions for research, warning dissemination, drugs and machinery production, capacity building, stakeholder collaboration, identification of vulnerable communities and zones, international collaboration and so on. This will drastically reduce the impact of such disasters in future and make the country resilient to biological-hazards. The second phase of Covid-19 disaster management was the intervention phase by the Government.
The national and the State Governments intervened as the pandemic hit the nation. The methods included cutting off the infection chain by imposing lockdown and shutdown, creating containment zones, curbing social gatherings, enforcing use of sanitation and protective gears, providing healthcare and medicines, undertaking research, issuing time to time warnings and providing vaccination. The vulnerable people, like the poor, the street vendors, the migrant labourers, the children, the existing beneficiaries of the social security schemes and so on were provided with food, ration, pensions and ex-gratia. This phase is continuing as Covid19 second wave is still in existence. The country must enter now into the first and second Covid-19 damage recovery phase with simultaneous preparation for confronting the possible third and fourth- waves.
Just like the State and the Centre prepare a damage assessment report and come out with a disaster recovery plan after a natural disaster, with allocation of necessary finance, similarly, the State and the Union Governments must assess the damage due to yearlong Covid19 pandemic in different sectors and prepare a Covid-19-integrated recovery plan at the State and national level.
The Covid19 pandemic has caused damaged to life, economy, livelihood, and education of the children, justice delivery system, and time-bound public service delivery system, social and family life and so on. There are areas where financial assistance is required for recovery. One such area is the economy- cum -livelihood sector where the Government should assess the damage and extend financial assistance for recovery. The Union and State Governments have done something though more is needed.
There must be concrete planning for the recovery of primary, secondary and tertiary sectors and informal sector of economy, based on damage assessment. The second area where financial and structural attention is needed is the education sector. During a natural disaster, the disruption in education of children occurs for short- duration, but under the spell of Covid19, the education system has been paralysed for more than a year.
The academic year 2020-21 has elapsed without syllabus- teaching as many students don’t have access to digital system to attend virtual classes. Examinations could not be held. Now it is feared that half of the academic year 2021-22 shall pass away without resumption of regular classes due to the third wave. There should be an urgent education recovery plan for the students from sixth standard to the higher secondary level, so that they can appear the year- ending examinations in 2022. As education is in the Concurrent List, either the Union or the State Government or both can make policy changes and formulate the Covid19 educational recovery
plan. However, the Union Government should lead this educational recovery plan as part of the National Education Policy 2020. The only teaching-learning medium available is the combination of online and off-line processes.
As a first step, a condensed syllabus has to be created for the students from sixth standard to the higher -secondary level, called the Covid19 capsule syllabus, where the syllabus of two academic years (2020-21 and 2021-22) shall be merged into one year syllabus ( say 100 hours per subject) for each class. The study materials should be produced or redesigned in digital mode urgently for the online teaching system, while the books will be published for offline study to come out later.
The TV channels can be partnered to broadcast the contents at a stipulated time, apart from schools using teaching apps. The Government should provide each student with a good quality mobile phone with necessary locking-system to prevent misuse. The Central Government under its digital -India programme, must complete urgently the digitalisation process of all Gram Panchyats and schools.
Parenting- training can be imparted through digital avenue. Unless urgent steps are taken, we shall have a permanently disaster-hit and educationally -crippled children who shall suffer in their life.
(The writer is a freelance journalist and a columnist. Phone: 9439178588)