This paper proposes to study institutional financial arrangements in India at national, state and district levels for providing relief and rehabilitation to the affected persons during natural hazards.
India's location and geographical features render it vulnerable to a number of natural hazards such as cyclone, drought, floods, earthquakes, landslides etc. The Government and people have learned a lot of lessons from the past experiences and have developed a financial system to provide relief to affected persons during/after natural disasters.
For seeking assistance from National Fund for Calamity Relief (NFCR), the concerned State Government is required to send a memorandum, indicating in detail the sectorwise damage, requirements of funds from NFCR etc. Lack of information, in most of the cases, leads to delay in processing the requests of the State Government.
The study is based on the data/information collected for the last ten years (1995‐2005). The period is short for developing any hypothesis but sufficient care has been taken to consider vital factors.
A calamity of rare severity requires a high level of relief assistance from the State. Sound financial mechanism helps the Government to tackle the problem immediately and efficiently.
The study highlights shortcomings in the financial mechanism for relief in India and suggests steps to overcome them.
