The challenge
India's disaster management infrastructure is strongest at the national and state levels but weakest where disasters actually strike — in villages, panchayats and block-level communities. Kangra District, with its multi-hazard profile and dispersed population across difficult terrain, exemplifies this gap. Formal emergency services cannot reach every settlement quickly; communities must be their own first responders.
The EDMRC approach
AapdaPAR is a comprehensive panchayat-level programme integrating four traditionally separate domains:
- Community-Based Disaster Risk Management. Village-level Disaster Management Plans (VDMPs), Incident Response Teams (IRTs), Village Panchayat Disaster Management Committees (VPDMCs), Women Emergency Response & Rescue Teams (WERRTs), and Panchayat Emergency Response Centres (PERCs).
- SEHAT SEVA Geriatric Care. Health preparedness for elderly and vulnerable populations through SHG-based care networks and VNS-SSK (Village Nursing Station) elder care nodes.
- BAGEECHA Green Economy. Kitchen garden and ecological restoration programmes building food security, climate adaptation and supplementary livelihoods at household level.
- Women's Professional Development. Building women's leadership capacity through the CRP / CLF cadre, creating a professional pathway for women as community disaster management practitioners.
Operational infrastructure
Panchayat Cluster SHEILD Centres. Hubs providing community outreach, equipment supply and maintenance, training facilities, communication infrastructure and coordination capacity.
BikeLIFER. Motorcycle-based first responder units for rapid deployment across difficult terrain.
PERCs. Panchayat-level emergency response centres equipped with firefighting equipment, first aid supplies and communication tools. Aligned with the HP Government's statewide cabinet decision to establish PERCs.
VNS-SSK. Village Nursing Station — SEHAT SEVA Kendra elder care nodes integrated into the disaster management structure.
Current status
AapdaPAR Foundation Training was delivered across all the panchayats in Kangra District from 2020 to 2025. In 2026, EDMRC has initiated panchayat- and cluster-level institutionalisation. The programme documentation includes a Main Concept Plan, Standard Operating Procedures Manual, Risk-Benefit / SWOT Analysis, and a Year 1 Operational Playbook.
Sustainability pathway
AapdaPAR is designed for replication — from Kangra to other Himachal Pradesh districts and eventually national scale. The model's sustainability draws on convergence with DAY-NRLM / NRLM structures (SHGs, CLFs, CRPs), IAG frameworks, CSR partnerships, and government panchayat development and disaster management budgets.