The Corporate Disaster Resource Network aims at creating a public-private partnership between government, NGOs and industry to combat both natural and man-made disasters.
As terrorism transforms neighbourhoods into battlefields, one of the top symbols of Indian industry that became the target of the latest terror attack is part of an initiative to create a partnership between government, NGOs and industry to combat both natural and man-made disasters.
The Corporate Disaster Resource Network (CDRN), which was launched this month by the home ministry’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and global NGO Aid Matrix, has among its members Tata Bluescope Steel and ArcelorMittal.
The idea is to create a ready database of companies against a list of products required to respond to a disaster.
A standard list of response materials exists with the United Nations and International Red Cross. This will be posted on the CDRN website. The companies willing to become suppliers of these materials will be required to sign up against them.
The NDMA says this model has been extremely successful in the United States, providing value to the cause as well as to the providers.
This unique public-private partnership is a for-profit model but companies are always welcome to donate. Tata Bluescope Steel, for instance, has its charity flowing from the Tata relief fund. At the same time, as a member of the CDRN, the company ensures that in times of a disaster, Aid Matrix, governments or donor agencies find ready supplies of relief shelters. These shelters can be assembled quickly and are portable. In three to four days, an entire housing complex can come up. Tata Bluescope sent them in large numbers during the tsunami disaster in 2004. Similarly, IBM and ArcelorMittal have offered their own products for the network.
The CDRN database will create a list of products beginning with the basic ones like packed food, blankets, water purifiers and shelter material to more complicated ones like water mist cylinders to put out large fires. The latter comprise 30 kg cylinders that can give out 900 litres of water foam and mist to put out fires.
While the NDMA has issued guidelines for coping with biological and chemical disasters, it will also ask companies to match their products with the demand lists in these cases.
The database will also help locate companies located closer to the sites of disaster. The CDRN already has a link to the three million companies that are partnering the US government in its initiative with Aid Matrix for disaster response.
Aid Matrix on its own has 35,000 MNCs as members. The NGO’s network supported relief after the recent earthquake in China and the cyclone in Myanmar.
The NDMA has a corporate task force which was, however, nowhere in the picture when the floods ravaged Bihar recently. The partnership with Aid Matrix and the companies is expected to activate it.
