NDMA training people on disaster management
The asset-light NDMA is spreading its training down to the village level.
A damaged yacht washed up onto a bridge 10 days after the massive earthquake and tsunami in Ishinomaki, Japan
Flash: Earthquake…Buildings have collapsed in Gurgaon office hub…roads have caved in….
Reaction: The National Disaster Management Authority sends two specially trained battalions in Air Force helicopters. The Gurgaon administration begins playing a well-rehearsed double role - of emergency services, relief and rescue.
The bit about the Gurgaon administration has not been tested yet, but you can bet your last emergency light that in a few years from now state governments all over India will no longer look lost and call out the army every time there is a flood or fire somewhere. All courtesy the fledgling National Disaster Management Authority, or NDMA, which has been setting guidelines, training states and eyeing public-private partnerships.
For a billion people, the NDMA has only a National Disaster Response Force or NDRF of nine operational battalions adding up to 8,500 personnel from the paramilitary forces. The key: the Disaster Management Act of 2005 empowers it to rope in district level officials.
J.K. Sinha, a former head of the Central Reserve Police Force and now the seniormost member of the NDMA, says: "Each battalion covers two or three states and is trained in rescue operations."
All are being equipped for nuclear, biological and chemical threats following the Fukushima crisis. Sinha is not worried about the NDRF's capabilities: "We have already been tested and have done good work in the Karnataka, Andhra and Kosi floods."
The NDMA has also sponsored a portal (www. cdrn.org.in) where suppliers can list relief materials for donation or sale. This cuts storage costs. "After the Leh floods, polythene sheets were useless as shelter in the cold,"says Sinha. So he requested Tata Steel to pay for 500 tents made by a Kanpur firm. The Air Force transported them.
For now, the NDMA's battles are not with disasters, but with Indian duplicity and fellow bureaucrats. After the tsunami, the government had put out an advanced early warning system at sea. But fishermen have stolen the batteries for the sensors in most of the buoys.
India's disaster management was under the agriculture department since the days of British rule, since droughts were the worst that could happen in those days. The ministry of home affairs, or MHA, took over relatively recently. Now, the NDMA is fighting a battle of files with the MHA over the moribund civil defence mechanism, which the NDMA wants to revive with a PPP model. But civil defence is the MHA'S turf.
Sinha is digging in. So what if the NDMA still does not have its own control room.
Reaction: The National Disaster Management Authority sends two specially trained battalions in Air Force helicopters. The Gurgaon administration begins playing a well-rehearsed double role - of emergency services, relief and rescue.
The bit about the Gurgaon administration has not been tested yet, but you can bet your last emergency light that in a few years from now state governments all over India will no longer look lost and call out the army every time there is a flood or fire somewhere. All courtesy the fledgling National Disaster Management Authority, or NDMA, which has been setting guidelines, training states and eyeing public-private partnerships.
For a billion people, the NDMA has only a National Disaster Response Force or NDRF of nine operational battalions adding up to 8,500 personnel from the paramilitary forces. The key: the Disaster Management Act of 2005 empowers it to rope in district level officials.
We have already been tested and have done good work in the Karnataka, Andhra and Kosi fl oods: J.K. Sinha
All are being equipped for nuclear, biological and chemical threats following the Fukushima crisis. Sinha is not worried about the NDRF's capabilities: "We have already been tested and have done good work in the Karnataka, Andhra and Kosi floods."
The NDMA has also sponsored a portal (www. cdrn.org.in) where suppliers can list relief materials for donation or sale. This cuts storage costs. "After the Leh floods, polythene sheets were useless as shelter in the cold,"says Sinha. So he requested Tata Steel to pay for 500 tents made by a Kanpur firm. The Air Force transported them.
For now, the NDMA's battles are not with disasters, but with Indian duplicity and fellow bureaucrats. After the tsunami, the government had put out an advanced early warning system at sea. But fishermen have stolen the batteries for the sensors in most of the buoys.
India's disaster management was under the agriculture department since the days of British rule, since droughts were the worst that could happen in those days. The ministry of home affairs, or MHA, took over relatively recently. Now, the NDMA is fighting a battle of files with the MHA over the moribund civil defence mechanism, which the NDMA wants to revive with a PPP model. But civil defence is the MHA'S turf.
Sinha is digging in. So what if the NDMA still does not have its own control room.
