Mumbai : A little known fact about the BMC’s upcoming City Institute of Disaster Management (CIDM) is that it houses a replica of the Civic Disaster Management Control Room (DMCR) housed at the BMC headquarters. The new cell will be a smaller version of the DMCR and will act as a backup in case of an emergency.
A senior civic official involved in the process said: “We want to create an alternative in case of something even as simple as an electronic or computer system shutting down unexpectedly or if a major calamity happens.”
The BMC planned the CIDM institute after the floods of July 2005 that paralysed the entire city but it had failed to acquire the building in Parel that was assigned for the institute.
Through this institute, the civic body also plans to provide training for managing calamities such as fire, floods, earthquake and other emergency situations like accidents.
The institute is now set to open to citizens in early 2016. The official said that courses in disaster management will be conducted here for BMC employees, other government officials, students, journalists and media professionals, doctors and citizens at large. The aim is to create awareness about disaster management and the content of each course will be based on the audience for it.
“This way, we will also create a large task force sensitive about disaster control and management, equipped to deal with calamities,” said the official.
Faculty will include officials from National Disaster Management Force (NDRF), the fire brigade, engineers and other experts.
The BMC is also developing a museum and an auditorium on the premises of this institute. The museum will be open to citizens and will display technology and techniques of disaster control though audio-visual templates. The auditorium will show films related to disaster management.
BMC has spent over Rs 3 crore on the project.
