Disaster management not on govt agenda

Chandigarh, December 11
According to the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM), run by the Ministry of Home Affairs, 27 of the 29 states in the country held 544 training programmes during 2010-2011 for preparing experts for the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF). Punjab did not hold any such programme.
The concept of the NDRF was proposed in Section 42 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005.
Since then, more and more states have been utilising Central funds to train its officials to deal with exigencies classified as disasters. In 2008-2009, as many as 354 programmes were held in 22 states and training imparted to 9,486 persons. Even as the number of such programmes dropped to 354 in 2009-2010, the number of people trained rose to 15,233.
Punjab has remained aloof to such programmes and does not have a single disaster management expert though 45,320 specialists have received training countrywide in the past three years.
Though Punjab failed to claim Central assistance for disaster management training in 2007-2008 and 2009-2010, it received Rs 3.90 lakh in 2008-2009 and Rs 10 lakh during 2010-2011.According to information released by the NIDM, Punjab was not given some grants as it had not submitted utilisation certificates for the previous years.
The funds are released in instalments after physical and financial progress reports are received from the state’s Administrative Training Institutes (ATIs) that have been entrusted with the task of disaster management training.
It is strange that the NIDM, the nodal agency entrusted with the task of coordinating with the ATIs, has not given an adverse report on Punjab. At the annual training conference in February-March, 2012, Punjab will have to explain as to why it had failed to keep up with the other states in training its personnel. The annual meeting reviews the functioning of the disaster training centres in each state.
The neighbouring state of Haryana has held 62 disaster training programmes and trained 1,649 officials and Himachal Pradesh has held 67 training programmes and trained 1421 officials since 2008.
The NIDM had released Rs 1,240 crore across India during 2010-11 for the training programmes.
It has already received the expenditure account for Rs 1066 crore.