Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify various issues and challenges humanitarian supply chain faces on the ground level. The paper aims at defining the major problems and searching for their possible solutions with the help of available literature and interaction of ground level experience. Design/methodology/approach The authors focus on building a theory and propose solutions for the real time problems faced in the disaster environment. To solve its purpose, besides taking the insights from available and relevant literature, paper has followed ground level experience of the concerned people in supply chain as well. Authors have quoted the real time examples and statements in order to make the situation more clear and precise. Findings Humanitarian relief supply chain in today’s environment often confronts the challenges such as information availability, inventory management, collaboration, logistics related issues, preparedness etc. The study explores various challenges. After searching roots of these challenges in literature it proposes some considerable solutions which can be further studied for their validity, acceptability and implementation. Research limitations/implications The research has considered only the natural disasters and not the manmade ones. It has also taken examples from Indian conditions. However, the conditions in other countries and their practices for the disaster management may vary to certain extent. There are many disasters such as volcanos which do not have a historical record of striking in Indian conditions which confine the authorities to disaster specific practices. Practical implications The research initiates further work in this area on various issues explored in the study. There is scope of separate attention on each of the issues discussed. The study will help the humanitarian relief practitioners to understand the insights of disaster situations. It will convince the practitioners and future researchers on focusing and analyzing the proposed frameworks. Originality/value The paper presents issues from real time situations at the ground level in humanitarian relief environment. With the help of literature authors have tried to conceptualize these issues and their “can be” solutions.