Disaster Preparedness of your District: Act Now

National Civil Defence College, Nagpur has elaborate training programme for Disaster Management. During my training days (late 70's) , I found the faculty members to be quite enthusiastic for imparting training, dissemination of their knowledge ( which covers various types of disasters - Natural (flood, cyclone,earthquake, etc.) as also man-made e.g. railway accidents, (aerial bombing, nuclear bombing etc. during war) -to our country men. I presume that they have further expanded their scope to include industrial disaster, terrorists created disasters, etc. more  

Dear Sir, The disasters as it comes without any warning is difficult to manage without creating local competence to deal with it as the areas affected would become inaccessible all of a sudden - with broken roads, floods etc. So, the disaster management should be started from within the affected areas as a first phase. For this I suggest the following: A Student Disaster Management Team ( As the Student Police and NCC) is to be trained right from the primary classes up to the Doctoral Level) should be maintained in each schools, institutions and colleges or Universities. It should be made mandatory subject in all the courses offerred in and separate marks for this paper should be given to the individuals persuing the respective courses and grades given for marks including this. Once this is started and students graduate this way, each and every citizen would be in a position to manage his/her own as well as to help and lead others to safety in case any disaster struck. Take the example of Kerala floods - The people were asked to evacuate the houses by the rescue team and they were not willing to come out (some even abused the rescue team) - show that the people are not aware of the deadly situation they are in and are in a fool's paradise with the belief that nothing is going to happen to them and "accidents happen to others". So, the education has an important role to play - otherwise, education is the only thing which has its role to play than any disaster management teams. So, let each student be trained in disaster management, select the best among them - say 100 students from a school or 10% of the total strength to have special training and each sub district have a sub district level "Action Force" with 5% of the total strength of the students of the sub district, and a district level force with 1% of the district level students and 0.1% strength for state level. If such a system is implemented, each school may be converted to a rescue shelter as and when needed. The NDRF or Military or Para Military forces will then have the role of providers of the equipment needed for the rescue and lead the operations. As the training is part of the curriculum, the expenses needed to make the unit functional is not more than adding a course to the curriculum and it is worthy of that. So, let us act NOW! Babu more  

No publicity or awareness. We do not know the location of disaster management office even.May be some NGOs can be involved by the state in association with the state machinery . more  

Kerala is the only state which has disaster plan & department mandated by centre, but unfortunately it is non operational. more  

A permanent Disaster Management Plan,for the state,for the districts and for the subdivisions should be put in place with provision of its Annual Update based on weather forecast,rainfalls, updates of disaster infrastructures and the like.It should be validated before the onset of the monsoon season by elected representatives at the appropriate level and the civil society organizations. more