Brig Anand Thakur is a veteran Indian Army officer, an expert in military operations involving CBRN

Protection during war times and its related disaster management nuances during the non-war time. He had participated in the country’s mission for conducting nuclear tests at Pokharan in May 1998. He headed the Faculty at the Indian Army’s Centre of Excellence for Advanced Training in CBRN & DM at Pune. Apart from the numerous in-depth professional studies to his credit while in service, he is presently researching on establishing a co-relation between disasters, national security, incident management and risk mitigation. He can be reached at:  thakurant478@gmail.com

A major lesson learnt from the disastrous earthquake at Bhuj, Gujarat, on January 26, 2001, was the nation’s paradigm shift from a relief-centric approach of the past to a proactive, holistic and integrated approach to Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) by strengthening disaster preparedness, mitigation, and emergency response. Thus was born India’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in 2005. Since then, the NDMA has undertaken numerous initiatives for DRR and Capacity Building for Disaster Management (DM), in line with the mandate under the DM Act, 2005. This Act lays down an institutional mechanism for effective DM at the national, State, district and local levels. As mandated by this Act, the Government of India has created a multi-tier institutional system under the NDMA headed by the Prime Minister. It consists of the State Disaster Management Authorities (SDMA) headed by the respective Chief Ministers and the District Disaster Management Authorities (DDMA) headed by the District Collectors/District Magistrate & co-chaired by Chairpersons of the local bodies. In each State/Union Territory (UT), there is one nodal agency for coordinating disaster management, referred to as the Disaster Management Department (DMD).

CBRN Incidents and Security Threats

Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) disasters are caused by materials/agents released due to some inadvertent incident like an accident or a deliberate action like a subversive activity by some miscreants. But in both cases, a CBRN eventuality has the potential to assume pandemic proportions. In fact, amongst all disasters, probably only CBRN disasters possess this capacity to affect the entire world without respecting national boundaries. The uncontrollable and rapid spread of its adverse effect is what distinguishes it from other disasters.

Threats to life or property of disaster-affected populations or relief providers from petty thieves and local looters always exist. A simple inadvertent CBRN incident like the Delhi’s Mayapuri Cobalt-60 radiation exposure incidence of April 2010 had exposed the faults and weak links of our entire CBRN response mechanism. This incident showed that it had become apparent that the community and the administration were not sensitised to the probability that such an ignorant yet self-beneficial act is possible. Yet, the police were able to take care of such threats.

But a deliberate act to exploit a disaster situation of disruption to threaten the national integrity manifested, probably for the first time, in disaster management operations during the Kashmir Floods of 2015. Security forces had to carry armed weapons while providing relief – to simultaneously address two fronts – of safe evacuation, reconstruction and rehabilitation support, and remaining vigilant to the constant threat of a terrorist intervention to their disaster support. Ironically, they had to dedicate a force to guard against terrorists and Anti National Elements (ANEs) for enabling smooth conduct of disaster relief operations, even while their own families, houses and offices needed to be rescued.  This is akin to wartime situations where the infantry provides security cover to combat engineers for facilitating smooth execution of bridging and mine-laying operations.

Today, Nation States (Taliban-governed Afghanistan), well organised ANEs and terrorist organisations are all based on immutable ideological principles and have significant financial backing for pursuing their nefarious aims. So, is a CBRN eventuality a war-like incident? Probably yes. A plausible threat of utilising the CBRN agents by such actors does exist. The recent COVID-19 crisis has proved that the thin line between an inadvertent CBRN emergency/disaster and the deliberate use of a CBRN Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) has further blurred. In times to come, these two domains are sure to merge, giving rise to the concept of the aggressor nation engineering a CBRN disaster in invisible battlespaces (wherein the target nation does not even know that it is under a CBRN attack). In this crisis, China is believed to have already waged such an invisible war’ to assert its economic power over the western developed nations. More active involvement of the Armed Forces in the management of CBRN disasters is, therefore, an urgent need of the hour that the NDMA needs to recognise.

The Lacunae

A major lacuna in the way CBRN disasters are managed is the way ‘Security’ is dwarfed by ‘Safety’. Security means putting in place procedures or measures designed to protect the population against harmful CBRN substances. These preventive measures include a combination of systems and practices put in place at laboratories, by border control, customs agents, agricultural and natural resource managers to prevent the spread of dangerous pathogens, toxins or radiological material.

India has a robust legislative system to combat safety issues, refined and strengthened over the last four decades. National bio-safety and bio-waste activities are governed by legislations through State Health Ministries and Environment Ministries (Pollution Control Boards). Under the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme, a network of public laboratories with bio-safety practices and infrastructure is also being set up. But sadly, security remains a stepbrother of safety.

The Way Ahead

So what should be done? In short, I feel that greater involvement of the Armed Forces in the NDMA’s Pre-Disaster Management activities will help formulate more holistic DM plans and, therefore, their more efficient execution. In specific, their suggested involvement could be increased in the following areas:

Coordination: A National CBRN Experts Group can be created under NDMA, with the active involvement of the Armed Forces. Other experts, scientists and agencies can continue to render advice on specialist issues as hither-to-fore.

Need for Training: While today’s CBRN training of NDRF battalions is grossly below the desired standards. Most States are yet to raise their SDRF battalions in required numbers. Their training in CBRN disasters management and that of other State government agencies like police and civil administration is almost non-existent. Even amongst the Armed Forces, while there is a satisfactory awareness about CBRN protection measures, the absence of sufficient equipment to put this into practice and their overall training standards are far from satisfactory. Their medical fraternity may be the most dedicated and extremely competent in handling such eventualities, but their formal training in ‘Management of Contaminated Casualties and Contaminated Dead’ in the required numbers is almost non-existent. So, organised, formal, coordinated and nationwide CBRN training of all stakeholders and its continued conduct becomes the most crucial requirement to be addressed.

Conduct of Training: Training of the entire national security community should be conducted in an integrated manner so they are well prepared to prevent, detect and respond to CBRN emergencies. The Armed Forces already have a world-class training institution where training is conducted at its well-equipped campus on both aspects – CBRN Protection and DM. NDMA’s Delhi-based National Institute for Disaster Management (NIDM) should consider this Pune-based Armed Forces Faculty of CBRN Protection at College of Military Engineering (CME) as its Specialist Training Campus to conduct integrated training there. This Faculty also needs to be designated as a Knowledge-Repository of all CBRN disasters aspects like Training, Concept Development, Qualitative Requirement (QR) Formulation, Equipment Trials and Advisory.

Human Resource: Raising, training and equipping of CBRN teams of NDRF and SDRF battalions for an optimal initial response should not be done by the MHA in isolation but by taking into consideration the CBRN response capabilities of the Armed Forces.

CBRN Equipment Resource: There is a dire need for provisioning CBRN equipment to execute tasks related to protection, surveillance, detection, decontamination/ sanitisation and area demarcation. It is a matter of concern that per the MHA’s policy, though the Armed Forces have fulfilled their responsibility of a nationwide NDMA designated deployment of Quick Reaction Teams (QRTs) and Quick Reaction Medical Teams (QRMTs) for reacting to CBRN emergencies, the MHA itself is yet to release funds for their equipping. This shows a lack of seriousness at the highest level that needs to be urgently addressed. Likewise, management of CBRN casualties appears to be an easy task to attempt, but when seen from the context of their massive numbers in very little time (as in the COVID-19 pandemic), execution of its various facets like Casualty Evacuation, First Aid, Triage, Decontamination, Detention, Treatment, Disposal and Management of Contaminated Dead, all done by the same medical staff, becomes a massive challenge that requires resources (funding, equipment and training).

Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be said that many pre-disaster activities that should happen as a matter of routine are not taking place. For example, even today, the NDMA’s Guidelines for Management of Biological Disasters that was published in July 2008 when the NDMA was raised, have not yet been revised. Even in the recently released ‘National Disaster Management Plan of Nov 2019’, not much updating of the initial guidelines has been done. There is an urgent need for the NDMA to move away from treating the Armed Forces only as their executive arm. Even when the mandate is to rightly deploy them as a last resort, experience shows that they invariably get sucked in much earlier, mainly due to their proven reputation of being the most dependable, sincere, honest, efficient and a disciplined Force that has never failed the nation. The COVID-19 crisis, too, proved this aspect when the medical and other resources of the Armed Forces were deployed in numerous quarantine camps all over the country and abroad, much before or alongside the nation’s so-called First Responders. Mind you, anti-terrorist activities, handling of deliberate anti-national activities like Tablighi Jamaat and Mass Migrants Movement, etc., have been going on alongside these pandemic relief operations. Hence, in times to come, the Armed Forces need to be more actively involved in the NDMA’s pre-disaster management stages like policymaking, formulation of DM plans, drafting/updating of SOPs, developing strategies, conceiving training content and conducting training jointly amongst the Armed Forces, the PMFs, the government machinery, the industry, the organised forces (Civil Defence, NCC, etc) and the citizens.