Most places in India are prone to disasters: Rijiju

Most of the places in India are prone to disasters and government is taking scientific approach to deal with any calamity, Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said today.

“India is prone to all types of disasters and most of places are prone to disasters,” Rijiju said and requested all state governments and stakeholders to be ready to face the disasters.

Addressing the 11th formation day of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), he said the Central government is positive in putting efforts in disaster management in the country.

Now the Centre is putting 100 per cent efforts for disaster mitigation and has left no stone unturned to address all disaster related issues, he said.

Rijiju said disaster mitigation should be looked from the scientific point of view and the approach should also be scientific to deal with it.

The Minister said there are natural disasters and man-made disasters and everyone has to be prepared to tackle them.

Rijiju also said each state government must have its own disaster response force of their own.

He said India is going to organise first Asian Ministerial meet on disaster management and Indian disaster response forces have gone beyond the boundaries to tackle disasters as they have no boundaries.

“We have gone a long way in disaster management but still to cover a lot,” he said.

A training manual on how to conduct emergency management exercise (EMEx) was released by the Minister on this occasion.

This training manual has been prepared on the basis of experiences gained from several emergency management exercises conducted by NDMA.

The EMExes are large scale urban exercises focusing on capacity building of various stakeholders engaged in the areas of disaster management and creation of a pool of master trainers in each emergency support function of the respective city and urban area.

Rijiju also released the first edition of NDMA’s quarterly newsletter ‘SAMVAD’ as a channel of communication and a platform for dialogue amongst the various stakeholders involved in the cause of disaster risk reduction.