Dehradun: Under the World Bank-aided five-year “Disaster Preparedness and Resilience Project” (U-PREPARE), Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority (USDMA) is working on a plan to collect early information about disaster threats and disseminate it to the people.
For this purpose, The USDMA’ emergency information centre will be upgraded and subsequently, linked with a multi-hazard early warning system. It will help in the fast delivery of information to the areas concerned.
Uttarakhand known for facing natural calamities
Uttarakhand has been facing natural calamities. Incidents like heavy rainfalls, landslides, land-subsidence, and forest fires keep on happening. So, the state’s first requirement is upgradation of the early warning system.
USDMA will be in touch with different organization
To strengthen the early warning system across the hill state, the USDMA will consult different organizations. If the USDMA wants early warning about heavy rainfalls, it may seek help from the agencies which predict weather conditions.
USDMA faces a major challenge to collect information about forest fire incidents
The new early system may enable it to collect information about the forest fires from the Forest Survey of India (FSI). The USDMA will have the option to consult the agency concerned to receive information about the earthquakes.
Information will be first passed to the system
This information will be first received by a multi-hazard early warning decision system. Then, the information, which will be received, will be analysed, and sent to the state emergency information centre. The state emergency information centre will give warning about the disaster threats. The USDMA will take help from the sirens.
This is a part of the Disaster Preparedness and Resilience Project
Recently, an amount of Rs 1480 crore was sanctioned under the World Bank-aided five-year “Disaster Preparedness and Resilience Project” with the objective of strengthening disaster management and reducing response time. With the help of this project, the hill state will further strengthen its disaster management system.
Several works under this project
Under this project, construction of 45 bridges, 8 road safety measures, 10 disaster shelters, construction/strengthening of 19 fire stations, construction of training centres for State Disaster Response Force along with works related to forest fire control under the Forest Department will be done.
