New Delhi: The government on Tuesday informed the Lok Sabha that it has approved three mitigation projects worth Rs 1,969 crore in FY26 to minimise the impact of natural disasters. The projects have been approved from the National Disaster Mitigation Fund for implementation in various states, including hilly states and regions.
Cyclones along the coasts, floods in plains, landslides, cloudbursts, and forest fires in hilly Himalayan regions, and extreme weather conditions have intensified in recent decades, and so has the need for building a stronger and more anticipatory disaster management system.
The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, asked in Parliament whether the “government has identified any lapses in the disaster response in the aftermath of the natural disasters in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, if so, the details thereof, including action taken to fix accountability.” Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, too, asked whether the government is planning to formulate a special disaster management policy for hill states.
The Home Ministry, in its response, said that recent reforms have the provision to set up Urban Disaster Management Authorities in all state capitals along with cities with a municipal corporation. This aims to improve city-specific disaster planning in dense urban centres that increasingly face floods, fires, and infrastructure failures.
What are these programmes and how much has been allocated to each project?
The programmes
The government has approved a programme for Landslide Risk Mitigation, allocating Rs 1,000 crore. The programme will work on reducing the mortality and economic losses by reducing vulnerability of communities and their assets to landslides. It will strengthen the early warning system (EWS) based on last-mile connectivity.
It will also work toward supporting scientific and technical capabilities in landslide risk reduction and mitigation at various levels, and empower local communities as partners to reduce and mitigate landslide risk. This is specific to 10 Northeastern and Himalayan (NEH) states, as well as five landslide prone states, namely Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and West Bengal.
Another important initiative undertaken by the government is the Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) Risk Mitigation programme. It has been started with a financial outlay of Rs 150 crore. This programme will adopt various structural and non-structural mitigation measures to minimise the risk of GLOF. Under the National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project (NCRMP), Early Warning Systems have been installed in coastal states, which have proved to be of great help in alert dissemination to the coastal community during recent cyclones. It has been introduced in four Himalayan states — Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh.
The third project is Scheme for Forest Fire Risk Management, with a financial outlay of Rs 819 crore. It has been introduced for 144 forest fire-prone districts of 19 states, which include Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Manipur, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Uttarakhand.
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Past allocations
Lok Sabha data shows that through NDRF, between 2020-2021 and 2024-2025, major funds went to states hit by severe cyclones and floods. West Bengal received over Rs 2,250 crore for cyclone Amphan in 2020-2021, while Bihar received more than Rs 1,255 crore in the same period for floods. Meanwhile, in 2021-2022, both Bihar and Gujarat received Rs 1,038 crore and Rs 1,000 crore, respectively, for flood and Cyclone Tauktae.
As per a Lok Sabha reply, Rs 2,644.60 crore were allocated to NDRF, Rs 16,118 crore to State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), and Rs 4,571.30 crore to State Disaster Mitigation Fund (SDMF) in FY 2025-26.
Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, and Tamil Nadu have also received funds for floods and cyclones, such as Nisarga, Nivar, Burevi, Yaas, and Michaung. In 2024-2025, Tamil Nadu received Rs 522.34 crore for Cyclone Fengal, while Himachal Pradesh received Rs 107.15 crore after flash floods.
Recent data by Lok Sabha shows that Rs 441.60 crore were released to Himachal Pradesh, Rs 642 crore to Punjab, and Rs 1,012 crore to Uttarakhand under SDRF for floods, landslides and cloudbursts that occurred during 2025-26.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)