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?Spread awareness about safe construction?
A NATIONAL seminar on ?Natural Disaster Management in India? held at DAV College, concluded here with a resolution that awareness should be created among the common people about the construction of safe buildings through various sources. This could be the only measure to reduce the losses in the event of any natural calamity.
A NATIONAL seminar on ‘Natural Disaster Management in India’ held at DAV College, concluded here with a resolution that awareness should be created among the common people about the construction of safe buildings through various sources. This could be the only measure to reduce the losses in the event of any natural calamity.
Over a dozen of environmentalists presented their papers on various types of natural disaster at the technical session of the seminar. Dr Shashibala Singh of DG College spoke about the efforts of the government in containing the losses due to calamities. She said that the government had already constituted National Emergency Management Authority in 1999 which has outlined the guidelines for monitoring light hazards, hazards mapping, disaster risk assessment prediction and forecasting and adoption of new technologies.
Dr Pratibha Singh also dwelt upon the government’s efforts for conducting rescue relief measures for the disaster-affected people. She said the government has set up several crisis management committees at different levels to face the challenges of nature.
Dr SS Varma and Dr NK Rana of DDU University said that very little attention was given to the societal and community aspects in flood mitigation planning. He said Rapti was an international rivers shared by India and Nepal. Most of its plains get affected by the flash floods on the upper catchments yet no relief approach was streamlined till date.
Dr Kala Sona of DAV College said geographers should concentrate on two things while preparing for natural disaster management plan. The first aspect was that they should prepare any plan on balancing the social and economic conditions of the people of the country and secondly they should finalise the plan considering the past experiences.
Dr Salik Singh stressed upon the need of efficient satellite, which could record and analyse the data. Sadhna Rani and Vandana Varma of VSSD College said that since in India, 54 per cent of land was vulnerable to quake, 80 pc of land was exposed to cyclones and five per cent of land was under constant flood threats.
Dr Siddiqui Rehman of DAV college suggested for setting up a disaster warning system, identification of disaster prone areas, checking of deforestation, adoption of new technologies for constructing roads and buildings in hilly areas.
