Behavioral Challenges of Humanitarian Supply Chain in the Context of Natural Calamities in India
Authors:   Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Central Polytechnic College Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala), India, C Anoop , V Dr. Regi Kumar ,   Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering Trivandrum (Kerala), India
Published: January 2023

When natural occurrences affect populated areas and destroy local infrastructure and population, they are referred to as natural disasters and cause pain and deprivation. India is one of the world's regions that experiences disasters the most frequently because of its physiographic and meteorological circumstances. Natural disasters have been more frequent during the past ten years or more, notably in India. Increased population, urbanization, industrialization, development in high-risk areas, environmental degradation, and climate change may all contribute to increased vulnerability to catastrophe risks. Humanitarian operations are started as soon as a disaster occurs with the goal of assisting victims quickly in a variety of ways, such as rescuing those who are affected or stranded, gathering and disposing of corpses, allocating resources, providing food aid, shelter, and medical care, and reopening access to remote areas. Delays in delivery or relief during humanitarian efforts can result in lives lost. Therefore, as it guarantees the seamless flow of products and services in a convoluted supply chain, logistical efficiency is a crucial component of humanitarian success. Logistics is essential to the effectiveness and responsiveness of major humanitarian initiatives like health, food, shelter, water, and sanitation. It acts as a link between catastrophe preparedness and response as well as between procurement and distribution. Calamities, crises, plagues, and destructive actions can all be categorized as disasters depending on the logistical effort needed. Different sorts of disasters require different approaches to management: Running refugee camps is considerably different from giving the kind of aid needed after a sudden natural disaster or a nuclear accident. Aid offered to help a place develop is different from aid given to deal with famine and drought. The humanitarian supply chain (HSC) is an organization that specializes in planning the distribution and storage of supplies to impacted areas and individuals during emergencies and natural disasters. The complex environments involved in a disaster, quick design, new or unfamiliar intermediaries or participants, and thus, it faces many possible obstacles, make it highly unpredictable and tumultuous. The humanitarian supply chain is made up of many different players, each with a unique attitude, way of acting, and cultural background. In a situation involving India, the humanitarian supply chain involves foreign aid agencies, host governments, the military, local self-governments, regional aid agencies, etc., all of whom have competing interests, mandates, capacities, and logistics expertise. Due to the complexity, it is imperative to analyze key variables in order to create a humanitarian supply chain that meets the needs of donors, beneficiaries, and service providers alike. The history of India demonstrates how a lack of professionalism, cooperation between many parties, and several other cultural variables have turned the field of humanitarian logistics into one with a lot of difficulties and important considerations. When building a supply chain, from sourcing to production, storage, distribution, and all transportation links in between, a sustainable supply chain (SSC) tries to take the environment, the economy, and social and human issues into consideration. The humanitarian supply chain should be integrated with sustainable practices while it is being designed or developed. In order to handle the most difficult situations in the context of natural calamities, a sustainable humanitarian supply chain that has been optimized is necessary. With the aid of cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchains, and machine learning, the domain of sustainable humanitarian supply chains in India is experiencing difficulties and obstacles with plenty of room for improvement. In the context of the natural disasters in India, the article's main focus is on the significance of an effective sustainable humanitarian supply chain. The goal of this article is to identify the obstacles and variables that affect the efficient development of a humanitarian supply chain in India that is flexible enough to fulfill the unique needs of an HSC that are completely different from those of a commercial supply chain.