(This story originally appeared in on Dec 22, 2014)

NEW DELHI: Bringing an end to the practice of rehabilitating 'out-of-job' politicians in National Disaster Management Authority NDMA ), the government on Sunday approved the appointment of a BARC scientist, a UN disaster mitigation expert and a retired army man as members of the central body.Giving a professional look to the underutilized authority, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday approved the names of Kamal Kishore, a disaster reduction expert at the United Nations Development Programme, Lt Gen N C Marwah (retired), and D N Sharma, Director of Health, Safety and Environment Group at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).TOI was the first to report (on September 28, 2014) that NDMA was up for revamp in which 'out-of-job' politicians and retired bureaucrats would not find a place. TOI had written that the home ministry has prepared a blueprint for reconstitution of the authority where it would have just four members of secretary rank with Prime Minister as chairman. None of these members would be politicians, but people, retired or otherwise, with technical know-how that is likely to help in disaster mitigation and rescue efforts.The three new members were selected on Sunday from a list of 82 names received after the home ministry for the first time invited applications from experts. The government had recently scaled down the rank of NDMA members from Minister of State (MoS) to Secretary in the Central government.Kishore is the New York-based adviser on disaster reduction and recovery at the UNDP and has been handling crisis prevention. Sharma has been associated with NDMA for several years, helping the body draft guidelines for safety in radiation- related areas. Lt Gen Marwah was the Chief of Integrated Defence Staff to the Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee prior to his retirement.Union Minister of State Kiren Rijiju , who handles the disaster management desk in the home ministry, had recently said the Prime Minister wanted NDMA to have professionals as its members and that it would not remain a "parking lot" for retired politicians.Last month, the government had made it clear that the practice of appointing politicians and retired bureaucrats with no background of disaster management will be discontinued and domain experts adept in handling man-made and natural crisis will be hired.The authority had become a rehabilitation ground for out-of-job politicians and retired bureaucrats whom government felt obliged to grant favours. Days after the Narendra Modi government took over, all but one of its members including the vice-chairman resigned.Earlier, the authority had eight members apart from a vice chairman and chairman. While PM was chairman, Congress member from Andhra Pradesh M Shashidhar Reddy was vice chairman. Some of its members included former CISF director-general KM Singh, former civil aviation secretary KN Shrivastava, Maj Gen (Retd) J K Bansal, former director of Bhabha Automic Research Centre B. Bhattacharjee and former CBI special director K Salim Ali.A government task force, constituted under the chairmanship of former agriculture secretary P K Mishra (now additional principal secretary to PM) to review the Disaster Management Act in 2013, had castigated NDMA for failing to achieve its objectives and being non-transparent in selection of members. Calling NDMA "a think tank without any link to ground realities", the task force report pointed to lack of functional integration between NDMA and the home ministry. It had also recommended that NDMA should not have more than four members.