Critics

New organisation

Talks about creation of a plethora of organisations. suggests an Urban Disaster Management Authority (UDMA) under Section of 41A. What brought the need for this additional authority? It is unclear.

Climate change not included

The word climate change had not been included in the Bill

Compensation becomes Relief

The word “compensation” had been replaced with “relief”

Over centralisation

It (promotes) over centralisation.

26.12.2024 - The Hindu

Critics

Reduced the scope

removed scope for participatory governance, accountability, and efficiency from the Act.

Top down terminology

uses top-down guarded terminology such as ‘monitor’ and ‘guidelines’, instead, terms such as ‘supervision’ and ‘direction’ could have established greater trust and bonding with communities and local governments.

Mechanical definition

Bill defines a ‘hazard’, ‘resilience’, and ‘vulnerability’, these definitions are mere mechanical words or inconsequential without acknowledging the substantive roles of local communities, panchayats, wards and NGOs in disaster management.

Intersectional discrimination

silent on intersectional discrimination.

Performance evaluation

nothing in the Bill on the performance evaluation of district authorities.

Law and Order excluded

excludes ‘law and order’ from the Act. It clarifies that, ‘the expression “man made causes” does not include any law and order related matter’.

Minimum standards of relief omitted

Sections 12 and 13 of the DMA, which covered the minimum standards of relief for disaster victims and the possibility of loan repayment relief, have been omitted.

Guidelines for minimum standards dropped

Section 19, which demanded that State governments follow guidelines on minimum standards of relief, has also been dropped.

No replacement for the omission

There is no replacement for this in the Bill.

Disaster preparedness dropped

Section 35(2b) and Section 35(2d) that ensured integration and preparedness in the plans have been dropped.

State Executive Committees (SEC) no longer has to do basic homework for preparedness; sub clauses (2a) and (2b) of Section 22 are deleted in the Bill.

Speciesism

Bill also suffers from speciesism. The thousands of animals which die after every disaster are not even mentioned.

Global examples

Global legal research documents, such as the Yokohama Strategy, the Hyogo Framework for Action, and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, local communities are known as the ‘first responders’ to disasters.

It is imperative to build on the capacities and wisdom of local communities.

2011 SAARC Agreement on Rapid Response to Natural Disasters.

March 2025

Union HM presents the bill in RS

Union Minister Amit Shah, while presenting the Disaster Management Amendment Bill, 2024 in the Rajya Sabha, highlighted the government's vision to shift from reactive responses to proactive risk reduction, from manual monitoring to AI-powered real-time tracking, and from traditional radio warnings to mobile alerts and social media apps. Current updates - Video

April 2025

The Parliament passes the Disaster Management (Amendment) Bill, 2025