Senapati: A mock exercise on earthquake conducted by National Disaster Response Force, Government of India begins Wednesday at Mini Secretariat in front of Treasury Office, Senapati.
Speaking in today’s programme, Pangabam Nupajao Singh, Deputy Commandant, 12 NDRF, Itanagar (AP) stated that mock exercise is needed to assess the level of preparedness of all the stakeholders, assess the gap in resources, communication and training level, check the response time of agencies and improve co- ordination and proficiency among all stakeholders. He also stated that mock exercise is very much needed in every district as per directive from the Centre so that life may be saved when an incident arises.
He said that Disaster Management Act was passed in 2005 with National Disaster Management Authority as the apex body of Government of India to lay down policies and guidelines for disaster management and recommend the provision of funds for mitigation of disaster with Prime Minister as the head at the national level, Chief Minister at State and DC in the district.
The Incident Response System was also developed by NDMA in 2010 as an effective mechanism in reducing the scope for ad-hoc measures in response with all the tasks to perform. Responsible Officer has been designated at the State and District level as overall in charge of the incident response management. The RO may also delegate responsibilities to the Incident Commander (IC) to manage the incident though IRT’s, he added.
He further said that the National Disaster Response Force was constituted in 2006 under the Disaster Management Act, 2005. The NDRF teams are trained specialized to response to natural and manmade disasters, MFR, CSSR & CBRN, flood & landslide rescue, deep diving search & rescue technique, canine & technical search and specialized manpower (doctors, paramedics, technicians, electricians). He highlighted that NDRF have 16 battalions presently in the country with 18 teams in one battalion. The NDRF teams have recently responded to fire incident at Dziikou and Shiroi in the state, he added.
The programme was participated by HL Jain, MCS, ADM, Senapati, Vivek Kumar, Inspector,12 BN, DLO’s and various departmental officials and staff members.
