Need proactive approach to minimise damage from natural disasters: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday pitched for a "proactive rather than reactive" approach and the use of future technologies in handling natural disasters to minimize damage.

Inaugurating the third session of the National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (NPDRR) here, the prime minister said, "We cannot stop natural disasters but we can come up with systems to minimize damage from them."

"We have to be proactive rather than reactive. What was the situation in the country (earlier) for being proactive and what is the situation now? Even after five decades of Independence, there was no law in the country to tackle disasters," he said.

He said that after the 2001 earthquake in Kutch, Gujarat was the first state to come up with a disaster management act. On the basis of this act, the Centre enacted the National Disaster Management Act in 2005, he said.

Subsequently the National Disaster Management Authority was set up.

The prime minister said traditional housing and town planning process should be enriched with future technology to better manage disaster planning, and added real-time assessment of resilience of local infrastructure was the need of the hour.

He said it should be a matter of pride for every Indian that the entire world has applauded the country's disaster relief work after the massive earthquake in Turkiye and Syria.

Speaking on the occasion, Home Minister Amit Shah lauded the work of the Indian relief and rescue contingent in Turkiye and Syria. The massive earthquake last month killed at least 50,000 people and injured many more in these two countries.

During the programme, the prime minister felicitated awardees of the Subhash Chandra Bose Aapda Prabandhan Puraskar for 2023 -- Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA) and the Lunglei Fire Station, Mizoram.

The NPDRR is a multi-stakeholder platform constituted by the government to facilitate dialogue and share experiences, views, ideas, action-oriented research and explore opportunities in the area of disaster risk reduction.