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The Defence Minister Shri Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated a Conference on ‘Disaster Management For A Safer India’ organised by ASSOCHAM in New Delhi today. Addressing the Conference Shri Pranab Mukherjee said that disasters wipe out the developmental gains achieved over the decades hence development cannot be sustainable unless mitigation measures are made part of the development process. The Defence Minister went on to say that the government of India has decided to put in place necessary institutional mechanism for drawing up and monitoring the implementation of disaster management programmes ensuring measures by various arms of the government for the prevention and mitigating the effects of disaster and for undertaking a holist! ic and prompt response to any disaster situation. As a major step in this regard the government has set up a National Disaster Management Authority under the Chairmanship of the Prime Minister Shri Mukherjee informed the gathering.
Shri Mukherjee added that our first priority should be to have a suitable Tsunami warning system. However he said, a warning system by itself is not sufficient to reduce the damage, the action taken after receiving the warning is what will determine the extent of damage. An exhaustive disaster management plan needs to be instituted at all levels to ensure that we are not caught unawares he said.
The first face of Disaster Management Structure is the district administration and hence their capacities have to be built up, the Defence Minister said. He went on to add that a paradigm shift is the most important phenomenon as it is not to have relief and rescue alone but to have in place a complete official policy on prevention and mitigation stage for disaster management..
The need for reviewing these aspects is well illustrated by the fact that whereas over 10,000 lives were lost in the Andhra Pradesh cyclone in 1977, a cyclone of similar intensity resulted in the loss of less than 1000 lives in 1990, the Defence Minister opined.
Concluding his speech, Shri Mukherjee said that this conference has immense contemporary relevance in the wake of the Tsunami and the recent floods in Mumbai. These and other disasters abroad such as the hurricane Katrina in the US and the typhoon in China have very clearly illustrated the need for prevention, response and recovery plans for natural hazards so as to minimize the loss of human life and property on a global level.
ASR
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