Facts of the case

• Floods due to failure of recently constructed embankment.
• Severe condition of people trapped in the submerged villages.
• Protest over allegations of corruption.
• Political pressure to cover up the issue.

Stakeholders involved

• Villagers
• Contractor
• Politician
• Self (District Magistrate)

Values

• Leadership
• Courage
• Fortitude
• Compassion
• Accountability
• Honesty
• Trust

Sl. No.

Step

Reason

1. 

Initiate a rescue operation and ensuring the availability of food, medicines and drinking water.

• Preventing loss of lives should be of utmost priority.
• Children and women are the worst sufferers of any such disaster. They need to be immediately rescued.
• District Magistrate must have responsibility to ensure supply of all essential material

2.

Assessing the severity of the situation and reaching out to disaster response forces.

• State Disaster Response Force (SDRF)/National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have appropriate experience of handling flood situations.

3.

Persuading locals not to protest and cooperate with government officials.

• Making the locals understand that immediate need is to rescue the stranded people.
• Local youth can help in locating stranded people.
• They can even help in calming down others with no confidence on government due to corruption allegations.

4.

Forming a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to look into charges of corruption.

• Knowing and understanding of the facts would help in pursuing the case further.
• SIT report can be used in subverting any political pressure.

5.

Taking strict action against wrongdoers.

• People involved must be identified and held accountable for failure of the embankment.

6.

Flood prevention, mitigation and adaptation.

• Since the area is in the flood-prone region, it is the administration’s duty to make it safer for the people.

Ethical dimensions:

• Denial of justice: Lives of people get completely devastated by the loss of their homes and livelihood due to floods. No monetary amount can compensate for the sorrow and grief of their loss.
• Lack of compassion and respect for human lives: The urge for monetary benefits and profit motives becomes so huge that a person (contractor/politician) can put lives of millions at risk by indulging in petty corruption.
• Loss of faith in leaders: People elect their leaders so that they can become their voice and address their grievances. Nexus between people’s representatives and contractors render people helpless.

Legal dimensions:

• Corruption: Allegations of corruption and putting pressure on the District Magistrate is complete dereliction of duty by political leaders.
• Governance failure: It is not just a failure of government to take timely measures in preventing a disaster in flood prone area but also a failure of civil society which could not initiate timely actions despite having knowledge of the delay in project completion, violations of rules and misuse of funds.
• Politicization of bureaucracy: The District Magistrate facing political pressure expecting him to cover up the issue indicates a defunct culture of quid pro quo in the country’s governance system.