Minister for Disaster Management, Relief, Rehabilitation & Reconstruction and Floriculture Javaid Mustafa Mir inaugurated two-day training programme on Incident Response System (IRS) organized by Divisional Disaster Management Authority in collaboration with National & State Disaster Management Authority here today.Minister of State for DMRRR, Ajay Nanda was the guest of honour on the occasion.The training programme was attended by FC Revenue, Lokesh Jha, Commandant General SDRF, Dilbagh Singh, DC Jammu, Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner, M L Raina, IGP traffic besides officers from Fire & Emergency Services, Revenue, Health and engineering department. Speaking on the occasion, Javaid Mir said that preparedness for any kind of calamity involves measures taken in anticipation of a disaster to ensure that appropriate and effective actions are taken during the emergency such as setting up the systems for early warning, coordinative and institutional arrangements, evacuation and emergency operations management, public awareness, disaster and evacuation drills, and stockpiling.Underlining the relevance of this workshop, the Minister said that IRS is an effective mechanism for reducing the scope for ad-hoc measures in response. He also said that it incorporates all the tasks that may be performed during Disaster Management irrespective of their level of complexity.He called upon the officers to organize similar type of workshops in every district so that stakeholders are trained, made aware of their roles for reducing chaos and confusion during the response phase.“Emergency responses are measures undertaken to ensure survival and prevent further deterioration of the situation. These include search and rescue, immediate repair and restoration of critical facilities and utilities, food and non-food relief assistance, medical assistance, evacuation center management, and networking,” the minister added.
Mir also disclosed that the present dispensation has adopted multi-pronged approaches to minimize human suffering during disasters and reduction of financial losses through integration of Disaster Risk Reduction activities into development planning.Given the State’s Vulnerability to both floods and earthquakes, he said that infrastructure is being designed with upgraded resilient features, which includes contingency planning for future disaster events.He further exhorted upon the concerned officers to reactivate all the District Level Task Forces besides motivating volunteers to join Civil Defence in large numbers. Regular drills at District Head Quarters besides training for exposure outside the State will be provided to the officers to adopt best Disaster Management practices, Javaid Mir said.Later, the Minister inspected various tools and equipment which were used during Disaster Management and directed the concerned authorities to make them ready for use during any exigency.Ajay Nanda appreciated the efforts undertaken by the concerned authorities to create awareness regarding Disaster Management and highlighted the necessity of community participation for sustainable disaster reduction as they are the primary focus of attention (in disaster reduction) since it is the common unit which is affected by disaster and, more importantly, responds to deal with the event. He also stresses on sensitization of volunteers at tehsil and block levels to create mass awareness.