Mumbai: Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Monday directed officials to have State Disaster Relief Force (SDRF) teams ready at all the divisional headquarters and also keep quick response teams ready at all district headquarters to minimise losses due to natural disasters.
Shinde reviewed the disaster preparedness of the state administration ahead of monsoon at a review meeting at the state guest house Sahyadri.
Shinde: NDRF teams can’t reach every place in every disaster
“It has been observed in the past that the NDRF teams can’t reach every place in every disaster. Hence at all the seven divisional headquarters we shall have the SDRF teams ready,” Shinde said.
The CM also said that all the local bodies should develop their own disaster management teams.
“Apart from the disaster relief teams at the national and state levels, all the local bodies too should have their own teams ready before monsoon. I’ve seen the effectiveness of such a team at Thane. The Thane Municipal Corporation has their own disaster relief team which has given its best performance whenever there were any incidents of caving in buildings,” Shinde said. He also said that the police too have such teams identified especially in the disaster-prone areas.
Shinde also said that the disaster relief funds need to be spent completely in order to ensure that there is no lack of disaster preparedness.
“Measures like having storm water drainage in good condition, erecting check dams to prevent erosion of coasts, developing multi-purpose cyclone shelters, measures to prevent boulders falling from hills, measures to prevent electricity outage etc need to be taken and work needs to be done immediately,” Shinde said.
The state government has already allocated Rs3,200 crore for all these works in Konkan, he added.
Officials said that Rs27 crore were received from the Centre which was spent on training 7,900 individuals. They also said that the state government received Rs3,947 crore from the Centre for disaster relief in 2022-23 while the state had to spend Rs3,863 crore over and above that received from the Centre.
The CM also said that a new system to electronically conduct surveys and ensure relief reached the needy within 15 days too should be developed as quickly as possible.
