THE CONTEXT: On 10 July 2025 a magnitude-4.4 tremor centred near Jhajjar shook Delhi. No major damage was reported, yet the National Center for Seismology confirmed that more than four-fifths of the National Capital Region’s building stock predates or ignores the Bureau of Indian Standards seismic code, underscoring a silent crisis.
TECTONIC AND ZONATION BASICS:
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- The Indian Plate slides northward at roughly five centimetres a year, colliding with the Eurasian Plate, raising the Himalaya and storing elastic strain.
- BIS classifies the country into Zones II–V, with Peak Ground Acceleration values from 1 g to beyond 0.36 g; Delhi falls in Zone IV while the entire Northeast and the Andaman–Nicobar arc occupy the highest Zone V.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RISK:
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- Roughly fifty-eight per cent of India’s landmass and forty per cent of gross domestic product lie in moderate-to-severe seismic zones (NDMA Compendium, 2024).
- A single “Great Himalayan Earthquake” of magnitude ≥8 could threaten over three hundred million lives across northern India, Nepal and Bhutan, overwhelm lifeline utilities and reverse years of poverty-reduction gains.
LEGAL–POLICY FRAMEWORK:
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- IS 1893 (Part 1): 2016 mandates dynamic analysis, ductile detailing and shear-wall requirements in reinforced-concrete frames.
- Model Building Byelaws 2016 link municipal approval to code compliance.
- National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Earthquake Guidelines 2023 press for risk-sensitive land-use plans, retrofitting and insurance pools.
- Finance Commission grant-in-aid now allows states to spend up to ten per cent of disaster-response funds on risk-mitigation works.
KEY STATISTICS AND HOT-SPOTS:
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- Delhi NCR: High-court affidavits and Centre for Science and Environment surveys show about eighty per cent of structures violate basic seismic provisions.
- Northeast India & Andaman–Nicobar: Entirely Zone V, subject to subduction-related events.
- Kutch, Gujarat: Two thousand five hundred villages retrofitted since Bhuj 2001, yet over forty thousand legacy houses remain unstrengthened (state disaster-management department data, 2024).
THE CHALLENGES:
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- Legacy Construction: Pre-2000 buildings lack confined masonry or ductile detailing; partial demolition costs deter owners.
- Enforcement Deficit: Fewer than one in fifteen urban local bodies nationwide perform mandatory structural-safety audits.
- Informal Urban Growth: Forty-one per cent of new floor space in Tier-II cities is added through informal contractors outside building-permit systems.
- Low Insurance Penetration: Catastrophe cover for dwellings is <2 per cent, leaving households fiscally vulnerable.
- Early-Warning Gaps: IIT Roorkee’s Earthquake Early Warning works in Uttarakhand but is yet to scale nationally.
GLOBAL AND NATIONAL BEST PRACTICES:
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- Tokyo retrofits heritage masonry with base-isolation pads, reducing spectral acceleration by sixty per cent without demolishing façades.
- California uses mandatory “soft-story” retrofit ordinances funded via low-interest municipal bonds.
- Bangkok revised its code in 2007 and again in 2021, adopting performance-based design for high-rises.
- Indian pilots: IIT Roorkee’s app “BhuDEV” sends ten-second lead warnings; NDMA’s 2023 lifeline-structure retrofit pilot covers Tripura, Uttarakhand and New Delhi Municipal Council hospitals.
THE WAY FORWARD:
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- Municipal e-Permit Clamp: Integrate IS 1893 compliance checks into the national “Online Building Permission System”. Automated vetting will reject drawings missing ductile-detailing sheets, forcing compliance without extra inspectors.
- Seismic Microzonation Maps on ULB Portals: Publish 1:10 000-scale liquefaction and PGA maps for every Ward on municipal websites by 2027 using DST-survey data. Homebuyers and insurers will price risk accurately, nudging safer locations.
- GST-Zero for Retrofit Steel: Exempt structural-steel sections certified for jacketing from the current eighteen per cent Goods and Services Tax. A typical four-storey retrofit would then cost ₹65 000 less, raising adoption among middle-class owners.
- EEW National Backbone: Extend IIT Roorkee’s sensor grid along the Himadri foothills and connect it to the common alerting protocol of the Department of Telecommunications so Jio and BSNL can push warnings to all phones. Ten-second lead time is enough to halt metros and elevators.
- Quake-Ready Panchayat Challenge: MoPR’s existing “Saansad Adarsh Gram” portal can add a seismic-safety scorecard (school retrofit, mock drill, emergency-kit coverage). Annual awards of ₹20 lakh motivate local competition without new bureaucracy
GOVERNMENT ACTION AGENDA:
| KEY ACTION | TOOLS | OUTPUT METRIC |
|---|---|---|
| Notify a Seismic Safety Rating label for all public buildings above 3000 m²; link Central Public Works Department tenders to a minimum rating of “C”. | Existing CPWD Works Manual; no new law. | 100 % rating disclosure in Union-owned stock. |
| Launch Retrofit-in-a-Box under PM Awas Yojana-Urban: a standardised steel-jacketing kit subsidised 50 %. | Redirect five per cent of PMAY-U vertical-II funds. | One million vulnerable flats strengthened. |
| Establish a National Earthquake Risk Pool backed by sovereign guarantee to widen low-cost catastrophe insurance. | Section 25 company under Insurance Act, seed capital National Calamity Contingency Duty. | Ten million household policies issued. |
THE CONCLUSION:
With 58 percent of India’s land and 40 percent of its Gross Domestic Product located in high-seismic zones, yet barely one-fifth of urban buildings meeting BIS safety standards, a front-loaded ₹50,000-crore national retrofit and early-warning expansion to cover every Zone IV–V district by 2030 is an economic imperative. This single decade of action could avert up to 200,000 quake-related deaths, shield ₹30 trillion in critical infrastructure, and transform seismic risk from a silent liability into a showcase of resilient, inclusive development.
UPSC PAST YEAR QUESTION:
Q. What is disaster resilience? How is it determined? Describe various elements of a resilience framework. Also mention the global targets of Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030)
MAINS PRACTICE QUESTION:
Q. India remains highly vulnerable to earthquake disasters. Analyse the principal barriers to seismic resilience and propose policy measures.
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