The Hindu Business Line : National Disaster Response Force planned

In the pipeline
The personnel of the National Disaster Response Force would be drawn from various Central paramilitary forces
State Governments will have to establish similar response teams, apart from setting up disaster management authorities at State and district levels.

Hyderabad , April 23

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has announced that a National Disaster Response Force, comprising eight battalions, each to be stationed in different parts of the country, would be formed shortly.

Addressing newspersons here on Sunday, the NDMA member, Mr M. Shashidhar Reddy, said the personnel of the National Disaster Response Force would be drawn from various Central paramilitary forces.

Each of the eight battalions would be located, among others, at Bhubaneswar, Nagpur, Chennai, and Chandigarh and in West Bengal and Gujarat, he said.

Response teams

Mr Reddy said the State Governments were also asked to establish similar response teams, apart from setting up of Disaster Management Authorities at the State and district levels.

Briefing presspersons about the deliberations of a National Workshop on cyclones held at Ahmedabad on April 21 and 22, Mr Reddy said the workshop favoured putting in place institutional mechanisms at the village-level as part of the disaster management strategy.

Further, Mr Reddy has pointed out that a $300-million World Bank-funded National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project

Project guidelines

According to Mr Reddy, only four States had forwarded proposals to the Union Home Ministry, which had signed an agreement for project preparation facility in 2005 and also issued guidelines for preparing the project. In contrast, he said, a $ 380-million CERP World Bank- aided project was grounded within three months in 1990 in Andhra Pradesh.

The NDMA is keen that world-class standards and protocols are implemented with focus on disaster mitigation at all levels. In this regard, the authority would evolve strategies and guidelines soon, Mr Reddy said.

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