India is one of the most sensitive disaster prime countries of the world, which is exposed to recurring devastations due to cyclones, floods, earthquakes, landslides for centuries. It is estimated that over 80% of the country’s geographical area is under the risk of natural disaster. Further 59% of the land mass is prone to earthquakes of various intensities; over 40 million hectares is prime to floods; about 8% of the tidal area is prone to cyclones and 69% of other area prone to drought. According to a study conducted by UNICEF, every year 65 million people an average in India is affected by natural disaster. Keeping this in background an attempt has been made here to examine four major aspects connected with the subject viz., the evolutionary process of disaster management in India, an overview of the major disasters in the country, significance of the Disaster Management Act 2005 and the key elements of disaster management plan, 2016. Although the NDMP has been designed as a dynamic document which needs periodic improvement in tune with the emerging global best practices in disaster management. It requires certain modifications. Firstly it has nto laid down a clear and practical roadmap. The identification of activities for disaster management and disaster risk mitigation are to generic. Secondly, the plan has not given a clear time frame for carrying out the activities given in the plan design. Instead it has prescribed that the activities must be carried out in short, medium, mid-and long term basis. Thirdly, NDMP has neither projected the requirements of funds nor provides now the funds shall be mobilized for carrying out the activities mentioned in the plan. Fourthly, it is silent about monitoring and evaluation of the plan. Fifthly, the activities mentioned in the NDMP are not new and they have already been mentioned in the Act and guidelines issued by the Natural Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) since 2007. Lastly, unlike Sendai Framework, the NDMP does not set any goals or targets nor it has explicity provided how the Sendai goals shall be achieved. Thus we can conclude that NDMP needs to be supplemented with clear goals, targets and time frames in order to achieve the vision of disaster resilience. Natural disasters are the result of climatic imbalance and it cannot be prevented fully but we can develop effective working system and minimize its loss by reducing vulnerability and increasing capacity. Vulnerability is more in India because of population growth, poverty, rapid urbanization environmental degradation and lack of information about disaster. Certainly we cannot prevent disasters but its vulnerability can be reduced to a large extent by taking adequate and timely pre-contrarary means.

Keywords: Disaster; Management; Cyclone; Land Slide.