This Paper was amongst top-10 winning entries in "Opsyrus 2006", the CoolAvenues.com - OIG (IIM Lucknow) Paper Writing Competition held during Oct-Dec 2006.

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Executive Summary

The Asian Tsunami that affected more than 6 South Asian nations and Hurricane Katrina that hit the South Eastern coast of the USA evoke heart-wrenching stories of devastated families and vivid memories of mass destruction.
International humanitarian organizations like the Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), WHO, UNICEF, CARE, World Vision, etc., and the local governments' disaster management teams faced immense challenges in coordinating and ensuring timely relief to the affected areas. Based on their assessment of relief operations post these large scale disasters, these entities are increasingly acknowledging the importance and challenge of "Humanitarian Logistics" in providing disaster relief. Humanitarian Logistics has been defined as the process of planning, implementing and controlling the efficient, cost-effective flow and storage of goods and materials, as well as related information, from the point of origin to the point of consumption for the purpose of alleviating the suffering of vulnerable people.¹

The key to effective implementation of Humanitarian Logistics is a highly responsive supply chain network that can cater to widely varying demands of disaster relief in a cost effective manner. Due to the high level of uncertainty associated with the occurrence of disasters, the supply chain backbone has to be established well in advance and made available at any point in time.

Disaster management in India has been mainly a reactive response wherein government agencies mobilize resources and relief supplies after the disaster has struck. Along with the government, a large number of NGOs and international humanitarian organizations also provide relief to the affected areas. There are several issues associated with this system of disaster management like lack of planning and preparedness, lack of centralized coordination, lack of information systems, lack of tracking and tracing of supplies and lack of trained logisticians.

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1 "From Logistics to Supply Chain Management: The Path Forward in the Humanitarian Sector" - Fritz Institute

* Contributed by: -
Varun Gupta & Naresh Mahadevan,
Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.