SHILLONG, DEC 6: The central government has sanctioned Rs 10.43 crore for setting up civil defence in areas prone to disaster and natural calamities in the seven districts of the state to to provide rescue and relief.
Director General of civil defence & home guards Kulbir Krishan informed at the sideline of an official function on Saturday,“We have received fund of Rs 10.43 crores for developing the required infrastructures for the setting up of the designated civil defence establishments in the seven districts within the next three years,”
The Civil Defence Act was amended in 2011 make disaster management as one of its important task.
Earlier, Shillong in East Khasi Hills, Tura, West Garo Hills and Jowai, now West Jaintia Hills were amongst the 250 odd towns in India which were designated as Civil Defence towns.
Krishan said, “Civil defence was only in these three towns while the rest of the state didn’t have any such set up at all.”
With the recent creation of new districts, the state is now having 11 districts under its jurisdiction, Krishan said, “But when the proposal was sent at that time, there were only seven districts in the state.”
According to him, these seven districts has been designated as most ‘disaster prone’ because they are prone to disaster primarily earthquake, floods and landslides.
Krishan said as there are already three designated towns, they will be covering the other districts as well.
Krishan said the purpose of setting up the designated civil defence is to train volunteers within the community to have capacity building to enable them to help their own village and towns in times of emergency and event of disaster.
“We are planning to do it in a big way and we are already on the job,” Krishan added. He informed that the department is also in the process of acquiring all requirements for development of the civil defence set up in these districts.
Krishan informed that the department has laid down what is the rescue and relief equipments (Quick Response Team Vehicles, Ambulances, Search and Rescue Equipments) which each of these districts will need to have. He said, “In fact a proposal was there that centre should acquire all these equipments and distributed to us… as it is cheaper and faster.”
But the centre instead have given Rs 1.60 crore and asked the department to go ahead and buy these equipments, Krishan informed. The fund is being sanctioned under the plan scheme for mainstreaming of Civil Defence.
Krishan also informed that the State government has on September this year sanctioned one company of State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) drawn from the personnel of the Civil Defence & Home Guards trained by the NDRF, exclusively devoted to the task of disaster management.
This company was also pressed into action during the unprecedented floods and landslides that occurred recently in Garo Hills region.
The SDRF team have done a commendable job in conducting rescue operations in Garo hills despite several constrains they faced, Krishan said.- By Our Reporter
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