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New Delhi: Vice Chairman, NDMA Shri Shashidhar Reddy, released National Disaster Management Guidelines on Scaling, Type of Equipment and Training of Fire Services and Hand Book for Training and Capacity Building of Civil Defence and Sister Organizations. Speaking on the occasion, he said that Improved Fire Services and Civil Defence are very crucial for effective Disaster Management. Shri Reddy felt that these two subjects should be transferred to NDMA, which is the apex body for disaster management in the country, headed by the Hon’ble Prime Minister.
He said that as per the Standing Fire Advisory Committee, on the basis of laid down norms, our country has a deficiency of 97.54% in terms of fire stations, 80.04% in terms of Fire Fighting and Rescue Vehicles and 96.28 % in terms of Fire Personnel, which is causing great concern to everyone.
Taking note of these deficiencies NDMA had made a forceful plea to the 13th Finance Commission for allocation of funds to revitalise the fire services. Responding to this the Finance Commission has allotted Grants in Aid specifically to the states, which had made specific proposals before it. Besides this, the 13th Finance Commission has doubled the Grant to local bodies compared to the allocation made by the 12th Finance Commission. About Rs. 15,000 Crores are allotted, out of of a total of Rs. 23,000 Crores as a direct grant and the balance of about Rs. 8,000 Crores as a performance grant, to be made available subject to compliance with eight conditions. One of them is to put in place a Fire Hazard Response and Mitigation Plan for their respective jurisdictions by all Municipal Corporations with a population of more than 10 lakhs.
Shri Reddy said that the guidelines cover various aspects of revamping the fire services in the country in terms of scaling, type of equipment and training of fire services. The states will benefit from the effort made by NDMA.
Shri Reddy observed that there is a need to carefully look at recent innovations like mist technology particularly in the wake of possibilities of shortage of water etc. There is also a need to look at back packs, motor cycle and small vehicle mounted fire tenders using the mist technology. This will help us to overcome problems of narrow roads and traffic congestion besides cutting down the cost. Shri Reddy also said that we need to look at technologies using minimum quantity of water for fire fighting equipment that are placed inside apartments and other buildings since availability of water can be major problem in general.
Besides the National Disaster Management Guidelines on Scaling, Type of Equipment and Training of Fire Services, Shri Reddy also released the Hand Book for Training and Capacity Building of Civil Defence and Sister Organizations. In his address he said that the Govt. Of India has already recognized that Civil Defence should be an integral part of DM framework and the Civil Defence Act has been amended accordingly. After the recently conducted Mega Mock Exercise in NCT of Delhi on 15 February 2012 in which nearly 15,000 officers and stakeholders participated, a large number of people expressed their desire to enrol themselves as Civil Defence Volunteer. Shri Reddy said that merely becoming Civil Defence Volunteer will not work, these volunteers need to be trained properly along with necessary equipment. Though Civil Defence works under the control of Ministry of Home Affairs, NDMA has initiated Pilot Project for training Civil Defence Volunteers and one such training programme has successfully been conducted in Gorakhpur District of Uttar Pradesh, Shri Reddy informed.
Shri J K Sinha, Member NDMA, under whose stewardship these guidelines have been prepared, made a detailed presentation explaining the salient features of the Guidelines. Shri P P Srivastava, Member, North East Council also spoke. Members and officers of NDMA, Core Group Members and others were also present.
[PIB]