The Sixth World Congress on Disaster Management is coincidentally being held in Dehradun at a time when Uttarakhand is facing the unprecedented challenge of rescuing trapped workers at the Silkyara Tunnel in Uttarkashi. The proceedings at the conference will be held in the sombre background of a rescue operation that is not only racing against time to save trapped workers, but also requiring many others to risk their lives in the effort. All the necessary resources and sophisticated equipment have been thrown into the operation by numerous agencies and organisations. Yet, with all of that, it has become difficult to breach a distance of ten metres necessary to reach their objective. With the increasing cold and probability of rain, the task is going to become even more difficult. Despite the equipment and technology available, it seems to have come down to plain old manual digging through the debris.
This is an unfolding example of the many dimensions of disaster management in the difficult Himalayan terrain. The essential lesson to be learned from Silkyara is that much forethought is needed for bringing ‘development’ to the mountains, mere allocation of financial resources is not enough. Taking into consideration the fact that the fear of calamity is no reason to maintain a hands-off policy regarding the ‘fragile’ structure of the Garhwal Himalayas, there is definitely the need to be ultra-careful. Better to spend money on taking every precaution rather than using it later on recovering from disaster. That is the essence of ‘management’.
It is for all stakeholders to offer inputs at the Disaster Management Conference so that a comprehensive policy can be prepared for use by the powers that be. It is not that Uttarakhand, in particular, and the mountain states, in general, lack knowledge of handling disasters – they have dealt with numerous calamities that have occurred even in the past couple of decades – it is that the price in terms of lives lost is increasing. This is because what used to be in the past isolated valleys with sparse populations getting hit by an earthquake or a flashflood, are now places teeming with pilgrims and tourists. The infrastructure being built is required to cope with new challenges such as road connectivity for defence purposes. Even efforts to develop an ‘environment friendly’ economy require the necessary civil works. Expertise needs to be developed based on advanced engineering and technology that meets the requirements of environmental science. It remains to be seen what the consultations at the conference have to offer in this regard. Lip service alone will not do.
