Company Name : Generic Source : Dailybhaskar

Gandhinagar: "Gujarat has become a role model for other states in the area of disaster management and preparedness," said B Bhattacharjee, member of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) on Saturday at the international symposium on earthquake science organized by the Institute of Seismological Research (ISR), Gandhinagar.

 

Bhattacharjee is former director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. Talking to DNA on the sidelines of the symposium he said, "There are structural and non structural issues involved in disaster management. Structural issues includes rebuilding of disaster affected buildings while non structural issues include how strong the government is in enforcing building codes? How is the government gearing up its machinery for a disaster situation? In the end how much awareness has been brought at the community level is the most important thing."

 

He further said that communities should be taken into confidence, while making the disaster management plans and the approach should be bottom-up one. "Gujarat has followed and implemented the guidelines of NDMA for disaster management impressively, we recommend other states to see Gujarat's disaster management work," he said. Talking about NDMA's future plans, Bhattacharjee said, "NDMA has got Rs 1500 crore from the World Bank for capacity development of professionals like engineers and masons through training under disaster mitigation program. The proposal for the same has been put to the cabinet secretariat for final approval."

 

"We are also taking up school safety project with Rs48 crore fund. We will be taking 2 schools each from 22 states falling under the high seismic risk zones, Gujarat is one of them. We will help them in retro-fitting. The third project is of Rs 1600 crore for cyclone effect mitigation, where we will be setting up cyclone shelters and early warning systems."