India
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Centre sets 15% women quota for new disaster forces
Hindustan Times··28 Aug
The Centre has issued guidelines for states to raise State Disaster Response Forces within five years, modelled on the NDRF. The norms reserve 15% of posts for women. Agniveers and NCC certificate holders will get preference in recruitment. Each battalion will have 600 to 1,200 personnel in teams of 45 to 50 responders. SDRFs will avoid armed enforcement duties.
Prism
What It Means For You
- States gain a five-year deadline and uniform standard to build disaster forces, aimed at faster local emergency response instead of relying solely on the NDRF.
- Ex-servicemen, Agniveers and NCC certificate holders gain a new recruitment pathway with preference for these disaster response postings.
- Tourist and pilgrimage sites will see mandatory safety audits by SDRFs, which could affect crowd management at high-footfall locations.
What's Happening
- The guidelines, issued by NDMA in June and made public this week, follow the 2025 Disaster Management Act amendment mandating an SDRF in every state.
- SDRFs will be headed by a DGP-rank officer and recruit from state police, CAPFs, armed forces and ex-NDRF personnel.
- Each SDRF must include engineers, medical staff, communications experts, dog handlers, divers and CBRN specialists.
Building India's Local Disaster Response
- The guidelines warn that over-reliance on NDRF even for minor hazards weakens state-level capacity and delays response during widespread emergencies.
- SDRFs will focus deployment on terrain-specific risks such as valleys, pilgrimage corridors and landslide-prone sectors, especially during monsoon and pilgrimage seasons.
- SDRF responders must be under 50 years old, fit, and drawn primarily from armed police and armed forces backgrounds.
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