Nestled in the eastern coast of the country, Odisha is often acknowledged as the disaster capital of India. Out of the thirty districts in the state, about thirteen touch its 480 km of coast. Making the majority of its coastal boundaries with the sea vulnerable to cyclones, floods and heavy rainfalls. It’s a unique phenomenon that the state can experience droughts, and heatwaves as frequently as it encounters the cyclones brought by depressions sometimes in the same year.
Its geographic positioning gliding through the Bay of Bengal for 300 miles makes it over four to five times likely to experience on-sea turbulence and storms resulting in riverine flooding. As reported, by the official Government records, Odisha has encountered 10 cyclones in the last two decades. Tropical cyclones – are often severe with heavy rainfalls, high winds and they bring extreme devastation to life and properties equally.
The super cyclone – brings wisdom to mitigating inequalities intertwined with impacts of climate change risks:
“On October 29-30, 1999, Odisha was hit by a cyclone affecting all of its coastal districts. The Indian Meteorological Department called it a ‘super cyclone’ due to its high wind velocity of 170-185 miles per hour; it had unprecedented storm surges, which was between 16-23 feet high; and the torrential rainfall over 48 hours was enough to trigger devastating floods in the major river basins. The intensity of the cyclone killed more than 10,000 people”, as reported in The World Bank, “Cyclone Devastation Averted: India Weathers Phailin” (2013).
The 1990s were earmarked as the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction as per the United Nations. But, it wasn’t until the super cyclone that states were equipped with information, capacities and imagination to deal with – havoc of mass dislocations from rural to urban and peri-urban areas induced due to climate change, and not to deny the fattening curve of urban poverty.
Odisha, not only learnt but today continues to build on its disaster management and mitigation strategies. Fourteen years later on the 12th of October 2013, when cyclone Phailin erupted the same kind of fear and irregularities in the weather pattern. The state stood tall with its preparation; with 44 lives lost; the state hogged international and national limelight for effectively pulling up – one of the most efficient large-scale evacuations in the history of disaster preparedness within any state.
Though there can be absolutely no comparison on the grounds of the intensity of both these calamities. Yet, it propelled a state to build and test its efficacy in terms of disaster resilience. In April 2018, Odisha became the first Indian state to have an early warning system in place for natural disasters such as cyclones and tsunamis for people living along its 480 km-long coasts.
With substantial measures like watchtowers within 1.5 km of coastlines, cyclone shelters, what was also an interesting find was enhanced local capacities of communities that – allowed information dissemination, preparedness, and adaptation of informalities to be resilient to such episodes of uncertainty.
Re-thinking City Resilience Via Slum Upgradation, Sustainable Livelihoods & Community Governance
Out of Odisha’s 7 million-plus urban population, over 1.8 million, or 25% of its population, reside in close to 3,000 urban informal settlements spread across 114 cities. In lieu of reimagining cities’ resilience, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik brought about a land-mark legislations in guaranteeing land rights to its slum-dwellers with all with hopes to strengthen the floating urban poor who act as lifelines to cities’ functioning yet misappropriately get affected due to their physical, social and economic vulnerabilities due to lack of access to basic facilities.
For a long time, urban and climate constituencies have not really interacted in the manner that they should.
But, the year 2018 became important for the state in many ways from setting an early warning system to strengthening urban poor communities; the government’s inter-convergence of plans and focused efforts guided by immaculate political and bureaucratic leadership from Housing and Urban Development Department and the state gave birth to ‘Odisha Land Rights to Slum Dwellers’ Act – popularly known as JAGA Mission ( JAGA means land in the local dialect) that turned out to be the world’s largest slum titling and upgradation initiative launched in May 2018.
The mission, not only guaranteed land rights but diligently caveated what makes the urban poor vulnerable and continued devising adaptive strategies and interventions. Thus, a conscious approach to address primary inequalities in the form of in-house piped water supply, and sanitation measures are enough to mitigate the incremental public health risks that accompany risks of climate change. Similarly, stormwater drains, and paved roads have been ideal for curtailing floods due to incessant rain patterns.
Street lights, community centres, open spaces are further foundational conditionalities that enhance communities resilience, all of which have formed the non-negotiables under this mission. Today, as we discuss, slums across Odisha are being upgraded with all basic facilities and services.
Climate adaptation requires active, empowered community participation and leadership that breeds information, skills to spring back in the aftermath of the calamities. Therefore, members of women and slum collectives are equal partners in this transformative process.
They participate in need assessment that allows them to closely work with local authorities in understanding neighbourhood-level infrastructural gaps, budgetary provisions, and building infrastructures as required. The intertwining with livelihood schemes such as MUKTA that emerged as a COVID -19 measure for returning migrants opens doors for access to sustainable livelihoods as a statewide program.
The participation of people also guarantees that there is an in-flow of enhanced investment into the slum pockets for maintenance. Wherever, they aren’t eligible for implementing work they take up a monitoring role to ensure key infrastructures like rainwater harvesting structures, drains, roads, community cradles are at par with their expectations and needs.
Through these steps, the ‘Jaga Mission’ is steadily transforming hundreds of thousands of lives, and making the vision of a Slum-free Odisha, come true.
In summation – JAGA Mission is unique in bringing together community and governance actors together in developing a framework of resilience. Participatory approaches foster local innovations and create a sense of ownership among empowered slum leaderships, with the calculated participation of women this program is equally promising for women, youth and children within the clusters.
While climate finance is often the levy of the national interventions, there are lean probabilities for such to percolate to a slum-level yet with legislative measures, that includes 25% capped towards slum upgradation, from municipal funds across urban bodies. The state addresses poverty of informality and climate risks to address climate change risks. JAGA Mission has every possibility of being a replicable model for medium and small-sized cities in curating resilience across the Global South.