Chapter I PRELIMINARY

(1) This Act may be called the Civil Defence Act, 1968. (2) It extends to the whole of India. (3) It shall come into force in a State or part thereof on such date, not being a date earlier than the date of the expiry of the Defence of India Act, 1962 (51 of 1962), as the Central Government may, by notification, appoint and different dates may be appointed for different States or different parts thereof.

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,— (a) “civil defence” includes any measures, not amounting to actual combat, for affording protection to any person, property, place or thing in India or any part of the territory thereof against any hostile attack, whether from air, land, sea or other places, or, for depriving any such attack of the whole or part of its effect, whether such measures are taken before, during, at or after the time of such attack or any measure taken for the purpose of disaster management, before, during, at, or after any disaster; (b) “Civil Defence Corps” means the Corps formed wholly or mainly to meet the needs of civil defence and includes an organisation deemed to be a Corps under the proviso to sub-section (1) of section 4; (c) “hostile attack” means any attack by any person or body of persons, whether during any war, external aggression, internal disturbance or otherwise which endangers the security of any life, property, place or thing in India or any part of the territory thereof; (d) “notification” means a notification published in the Official Gazette; (e) “personal service injury” has the meaning assigned to it in the Personal Injuries (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1962 (59 of 1962); (f) “State Government”, in relation to a Union territory, means the Administrator of the Union territory; (g) “disaster” means a disaster as defined in clause (d) of section 2 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 (53 of 2005); (h) “disaster management” means the disaster management as defined in clause (e) of section 2 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 (53 of 2005).