DC debate: Disaster management after Hudhud in Andhra Pradesh

Cyclone Hudhud that ravaged the coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh reflected the unprofessional and inefficient attitude of private telecom operators. Telecom service providers were given clear instructions to take precautionary measures to ensure that there was adequate diesel for generator sets.

The lackadaisical attitude of telecom operators and their callousness exposes clearly that they do not have a disaster management system in place. When there are natural calamities, it is the government that is usually blamed for the lack of services. But, time and again, our government has been at the forefront of functioning against all odds.

The whole administration shifted to Visakhapatnam with the Chief Minister to restore normalcy in the cyclone-affected districts. The cyclone caused extensive damage to infrastructure, property, crops and rendered many people homeless, but private telecom service prov-iders have not shown any social responsibility during this hour of distress they proved to be profiteers.

They failed to take adequate precautions to prevent failure of services which has inconvenienced people. They required a reprimand from the CM to behave responsibly in the aftermath of the cyclone.

The government reiterated that its efficiency has gone down by 50 per cent due to failure of telecommunication and power sector. The Chief Minister had informed the telecom operators to have diesel tankers at their disposal to meet emergency situations.

We do not understand whether it was their unwillingness or if they were more concerned about saving a few rupees on diesel at the cost of public interest or they have a rigid system that restricts them from responding quickly. Had the operators responded in the desired manner, telecom services would have been restored within two days.

Lack of telecommunication services caused extreme difficulty as communication was not possible within the government. This also delayed the rescue and rehabilitation work. While the government set the target to finish restoration work in two days, it was this careless attitude that delayed it by four to five days.

We must appreciate the citizens for being brave enough to rise to the occasion in putting the pieces together despite such extensive damage.

Government-run BSNL helped the government by immediately restoring almost 70% of services.

The government had a lot of expectations from private operators. It is unfortunate and disappointing that they were most unhelpful and uncooperative in the hour of need.

The compounding factor are the various levels at which disruptions can occur systems, network, physical infra, people and more. Absolute certainty of business operations continuity comes only when there is redundancy built at every single level.

So for a factory, in its extreme form, if absolutely normal manufacturing load has to be maintained in the event of a bad disaster, the whole plant will need to be replicated; with the replicated part kept warm but idle so it can take over production anytime. Clearly this comes at a huge cost and in most cases will not be practical or cost effective.

At what cost and for what kind of disasters, are a tough business decision. Most companies will adopt a pragmatic disaster management approach based on business risk balanced with the cost impact of managing this risk.

The first thing any business plans for is that the most critical business functions are not disrupted. Ensure fair redundancy to service these critical functions. The simplest way to do it is to have their normal operational capacity split between multiple locations. This takes care of any mission critical business deliverables that can be serviced from an alternate location in the event of a complete disruption of operations in one location for any reason.

Then comes managing disruptions within one site. Different strategies for different aspects. Technology companies maintain their core intellectual assets in offsite disaster recovery sites, so they can quickly recreate a worksite in any alternate city/country. Businesses often have force-majeure clauses in their business contracts. This is a last line of defence businesses will have to mitigate disruptions due to extreme natural disaster.

Now, any amount of planning is not sufficient when a major natural disaster like Hudhud strikes. This is the scenario where the complete plant will be inoperable. While mission critical business needs of large multi site companies can be serviced from other sites, the core operations will still be disrupted till restoration.

And in smaller companies that do not have the luxury of multiple sites, the disruption will be severe. For the not-so-large IT firms, in most cases if there are off-site data backups, then using work-from-home this can be mitigated to some extent. But it needs planning. Careful and proactive planning.