[caption id="attachment_283598" align="aligncenter" width="565"]
(Left to right) Johnny Ruangmei, Lhouchalie Viya, Menukhol John, and Kuldip Singh at the “table-top exercise” for the Nepex, on November 20 at the Secretariat in Kohima.[/caption]
Our Correspondent
Kohima, Nov. 20 (EMN): The Nagaland State Disaster Management Authority and key officials have begun going through modalities and plans to conduct the Nagaland Emergency Preparedness Exercise (Nepex) drill. The agencies conducted a meeting on November 20 in the Secretariat in Kohima to discuss the exercise.
Kuldip Singh, senior specialist for operations at NDMA, gave a briefing about the dispensation of roles and responsibilities according to the Incident Response System (IRS) structure. He said disaster management is important because India is vulnerable to them.
‘Whenever we do a mock exercise in the country we are doing a three-step process including training on the IRS and coordination and orientation conference, table-top exercise and mock exercise,’ he said.
The official spoke of rapid urbanisation in India, and people are moving in mostly because they want to stay near centers where they can work and also because our roads are not well defined, everyone wants to be near.’
Disaster management is no longer just another administrative task but a political imperative. Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and disaster management is now interlinked with almost every aspect of administration, he reminded.
Singh mentioned that the main task of the central government includes national early warning system or NEWS, where agencies are tasked with natural hazard early warnings, alerts or forecasts.
“IRS aims to organise government machinery into a efficient well-rehearsed response system that rescues ad hoc-ism, chaos and confusion during the initial stage irrespective of the complexity of the disaster or task,” the official said.
“IRS comprises of a combination of facilities, equipment, personnel, procedure and communications operating within a common organizational structure, with responsibility for the management of assigned resources to effectively accomplish stated objectives pertaining to an incident.”
Singh talked also about the Incident Response Team (IRT), an incident management mechanism in the field. They are pre-designated at state, district, sub-division and block level. Officers are also designated at state and district levels and they are the overall people in charge of the incident response management, he said during the presentation.
IRS facilities includes incident base, incident command post, staging area, camp, relied camp and helipads or bases.
During a disaster, the official said, the medical team should integrate anyone who is uninjured and is willing to help. “Everyone who is willing to help including NCC, NSS and young people who are strong and can help with the task must be integrated. It is not a stand-alone approach,” he said.
Johnny Ruangmei, officer on special duty at NSDMA spoke during the meeting too. Nagaland government is one of the first states in India to have a very detailed notification for Incident Response System and when it comes to disaster management we are not second to any of the states in India,’ he said.
Also, Menukhol John, principal secretary for School Education, said at the meeting that he hopes no disaster would befall the state and its people.
“Nobody wants a disaster or war but we have to be prepared for whatever may come,” he said. He urged the response team to ‘keep on practicing for any eventuality.’ “Our level of readiness and preparedness to participate in whatever works we are assigned to is the most important,” he said.
Temjen Toy, chief secretary, gave an update. The drill will be conducted by the district disaster management authority simulating extreme weather conditions in Nagaland on November 21, in various districts.
