‘India now has a $7.5 billion disaster recovery model'

NEW DELHI: India has created a disaster risk financing architecture within the country having a specific financing window of $7.5 billion for reconstruction and recovery of disaster hit infrastructure over five years, said principal secretary to PM, P K Mishra, on Monday.
Advocating an owner-driven recovery mechanism where agencies responsible for reconstruction and recovery are given in the hands of the community, Mishra said recovery and reconstruction programmes supported by governments and other institutions take four to six years, while actual recovery on the ground takes almost half a generation.
He was addressing a global platform for disaster risk reduction attended by UN nations at Bali, Indonesia. Working with the motto of ‘build back better’, he said “Covid has added a new dimension to our approach to recovery with greater focus on livelihood, poverty and inequality”.