A “proactive rather than reactive” approach to natural disasters was advocated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday in order to minimize damage and manage them efficiently.
While inaugurating the third session of the National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (NPDRR) in New Delhi, he stated:“We cannot stop natural disasters but we can come up with systems to minimise damage from them. We have to be proactive rather than reactive. What was the situation in the country (earlier) for being proactive and what is the situation now? Even after five decades of Independence, there was no law to tackle disasters.”
Following the 2001 earthquake in Kutch, he noted that Gujarat was the first state to introduce a disaster management Act, which served as the foundation for the National Disaster Management Act passed by the Centre in 2005. Additionally, he stated that integrating future technology into traditional housing and town planning processes is vital to enhance disaster management, and that it is imperative to conduct real-time evaluations of the resilience of local infrastructure.
He also stressed exploring the use of artificial intelligence, 5G along with Internet of Things (IoT) to make the ambulance network future-ready and also asked the stakeholders to look into the use of drones, gadgets for alerting, and personal gadgets that can help in locating people buried under debris. Focusing on strengthening disaster management governance in local bodies, he said: “We will have to institutionalise planning and review local planning. We have to work on two levels; disaster management experts will have to focus more on public participation and also for a real time registration and monitoring system using technology.”
During the programme, Modi also felicitated awardees of the Subhas Chandra Bose Aapda Prabandhan Puraskar for 2023 — Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA) and the Lunglei Fire Station, Mizoram.
NPDRR is a multi-stakeholder platform to facilitate dialogue and share experiences, views, ideas, action-oriented research and explore opportunities in the area of disaster risk reduction.