Small, medium scale industries to be roped in by NDMA

M Sashidhar Reddy, Vice Chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority, stated this while addressing the National Disaster Management Summit.

Supporting NDMA's proposal, TKA Nair, Advisor to the Prime Minister, said that small and medium industries need to play a greater role in providing support to civil administration in managing natural and man-made disasters.

"We need a public private partnership at all levels to manage a disaster, and that partnership should be at the lowest levels," he said.

Listing various initiatives of NDMA to improve disaster management mechanism, Reddy said deaths due to disasters have come down since setting up of NDMA in 2005.

"We have been able to bring down the number of deaths due to disaster since the inception of the National Disaster Managment Act in 2005, but we need the industry to come forward and help," Reddy said.

He said the NDMA is increasing its capabilities by acquiring new assets such as aircraft to detect movements of cyclones and other early warning systems to prevent disasters like floods.

The summit also highlighted the need for corporate houses to have their own regular disaster management exercises to keep themselves operationally ready.

Citing examples like the AMRI hospital fire in Kolkata, the NDMA Vice Chairman said the authority is working on guidelines on hospital safety.

Referring to repeated accusations of lack of preparedness of various forces after every disaster including the 26/11 Mumbai Terror attacks, P.K Mishra, Chairman of the task force reviewing the disaster management Act, 2005 said "lessons must be learnt from every previous incident that happens and make them sustainable. You can't relearn everything, everytime a disaster occurs".

Rear Admiral (Retd) V.K Singh, who was a part of the Indian Navy medical team aiding the Bhuj rehabilitation, said, "We cannot wait for a disaster to happen and then act, the preparation must be there and implemented. Implementation is a big issue which must be taken care of."