Barely a day before images of roads cracked up in a 5.8 magnitude earthquake in parts of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) were beamed on television channels, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared India’s intention to spearhead a grouping that would help countries to design and build infrastructure projects that can withstand the impact of natural disasters and climate change.

During his speech at the UN Climate Action Summit 2019 in New York on Monday, Modi announced that India was presenting a practical approach and roadmap to make infrastructure resilient to disasters by launching a Coalition of Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) and invited all member states of the UN to join the grouping.

Modi first mooted CDRI as an idea in November 2016, while inaugurating an Asian ministerial conference on disaster risk reduction. Subsequently, New Delhi hosted two meetings in 2018 and early this year, in which as many as 35 national governments, UN agencies, multilateral development banks, private sector organisations and knowledge institutions, took part.

“Globally, a lot of progress has been made in reducing the loss of lives, but the loss of livelihoods, infrastructure and economic assets is going up. The CDRI can emerge as a platform for generating and exchanging knowledge and providing member countries technical support, training and advocacy in building resilient infrastructure systems,” said Kamal Kishore, Member of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) here.

The idea is to look at how the present infrastructure in countries where natural or man-made disasters have an impact, is equipped to face current as well as future risks. Similarly, to develop standards that can meet these challenges and train people to design and build infrastructure such as rail, roads, airports or bridges that would have a reduced impact in the wake of a calamity, he said. CDRI can also look at whether infrastructure financing in countries is encouraging such resilience, Kishore said.

“Delhi Metro could be an example. When the devastating earthquake that killed over 9,000 people hit Nepal in April 2015, Delhi Metro picked up the seismic signals almost instantaneously, leading to stoppage of all trains plying then, Kishore told BusinessLine.

“We are already seeing changes in the pattern of rainfall. This year, many parts of the world witnessed floods, which are not normally expected. In areas where the infrastructure is not designed to face floods, what is the kind of anticipation that is possible in the long term? If that is not possible, how do you deal with such an uncertainty,” the NDMA member said.

According to him, the lean secretariat of the coalition would operate from NDMA headquarters in Delhi, using funds set aside for CDRI by the Indian government.

CDRI, in its formative years, plans to focus on developing resilience in ecological infrastructure, social infrastructure with a concerted emphasis on health and education, and economic infrastructure with special attention to transportation, telecommunications, energy and water.

Within two to three years, the coalition aims to have a three-fold impact, achieving considerable changes in member countries’ policy framework, future infrastructure investment and high reduction in economic losses from climate-related events and natural disasters across sectors.

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