Building Climate-Resilient Communities in India: Strategies for Sustainable Development

Abstract

With more than 80 per cent of India's population living in districts vulnerable to floods, droughts, or cyclones, community-level resilience-building has become as central to India's climate strategy as national mitigation targets. This review examines the principal strategies through which India is building climate-resilient communities, drawing on evidence from the National Innovations on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) programme, state-level models such as Tamil Nadu's Climate Resilient Villages initiative and Maharashtra's Project on Climate Resilient Agriculture (PoCRA), urban heat-action planning, and the national behaviour-change initiative Mission LiFE. NICRA has demonstrated location-specific adaptation models — water harvesting, drought-tolerant seed systems, and Village Climate Risk Management Committees — across more than 150 climate-vulnerable districts since 2011, while state programmes such as PoCRA have mobilised Rs 4,500 crore across roughly 5,000 villages in drought-prone Maharashtra. Despite this, the review finds that adaptation in India remains structurally fragmented — often implemented as a side-component of existing rural-employment or irrigation schemes rather than a standalone, adequately financed priority — and that only a minority of vulnerable districts have functioning disaster management plans. The review synthesises lessons from successful community-based models, evaluates persistent institutional and financing gaps, and proposes a strategy for scaling community climate resilience as a core pillar of India's sustainable development agenda.