By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 18 Apr: The Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority (USDMA), in collaboration with the National Disaster Management Authority, is holding mock drills related to disaster management in Uttarakhand in view of the upcoming Chardham Yatra 2023, which is starting from 22 April. The purpose of organising this mock exercise is to ensure that there is no loss of life and property of tourists or pilgrims in case of any natural or man-made incident during the upcoming Chardham Yatra, as well as to keep the state and district administration, other line departments, and coordination with the Army, SSB, ITBP, CISF, CRPF, Air Force in a state of high alert.
In view of this mock exercise, meetings of the national level organisations such as Army, NDRF, ITBP, SSB, SDRF and various important departments such as Meteorological Department, Health Department, Police Department, Telecom Department and officials associated with Chardham Yatra were organised in the Secretariat campus here today. USDMA with top officials of 7 districts namely Chamoli, Rudraprayag, Uttarkashi, Dehradun, Haridwar, Pauri and Tehri districts participated.
Today was the day for table top exercises by the officials of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), in which the circumstances of various incidents (flash flood, fire, road accident, health-related emergency, landslide, etc.) were demonstrated by the National Disaster Management Authority, and then district and departmental orders were issued by the higher officials of the districts and various departments concerned to deal with the said situations. The preparations at the level were explained through the presentation.
After that, suggestions were given by the higher officials of the National Disaster Management Authority on how to improve these preparations. This will be followed tomorrow by mock drills in the field.
On this occasion, Members of National Disaster Management Authority, Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (Retd), Rajendra Singh, Major Gen Sudhir Bahl, Col KP Singh and Col Nadeem Ashraf, Secretary, Disaster Management, Dr Ranjit Sinha, IG, SDRF, Ridhim Agarwal, Additional Secretary Dr Anand Srivastava, IRS Expert VB Gannayak and other officers were present.
