Thursday, 22 July 2021 | PNS | Dehradun
Soon after assuming charge as the district magistrate of Dehradun a day ago, R Rajesh Kumar expressed his disappointment with the inefficient working arrangements and irregularities in district disaster management cell. During his inspection of the district disaster management centre on Wednesday, Kumar found the work process of the centre inefficient and slow. There was no duty chart available in the centre that mentions which employees are on duty on a particular day. He even directed officials to take action against two staff members in the centre who were absent from duty. Talking about his inspection, Kumar said that there were a few flaws in the system but he has taken decisions to improve the situation. The DM has directed the disaster management officer to deploy employees for 15 days in the control room rather than assigning duties randomly. The contact number of these employees should be displayed on the notice board and in the public domain so that the public can immediately contact them during emergencies besides the control room number, he said.
Kumar asked the district disaster management officer to mark the storerooms with the names on the basis of the types of equipment and machinery kept inside in order to save time during emergency situations. The rescue team should always be prepared and make arrangements in a way that it reaches affected locations within 20 minutes of getting information during emergencies rather than taking hours, stressed the DM.
Moreover, he also instructed the disaster control room to update the district administration about any updates every hour after 12 PM every day rather than two hours like earlier.
On the question of whether the disaster management system of the administration was inefficient before he assumed charge, the DM said there is an established system to work but it lacks efficiency. However, he added that officials will learn from these irregularities as disaster management cannot be taken lightly because disasters do not occur as per our planning and no leniency will be tolerated in this matter. Meanwhile, Kumar informed that 12 roads were blocked in the district on Wednesday due to heavy rains out of which four roads have been unblocked by the team and the remaining will be cleared soon.
