Alert Government always takes preventive measures to meet calamities and disasters before these actually hit a place. True, natural calamites cannot be anticipated as these keep no calendar. But prevention is better than cure goes the axiom. Recently, the region of Doda-Kishtwar, Bhaderwah and Ramban was rattled by earthquake. We think that all States have some sort of disaster management system which is activated immediately if and when a calamity happens. The system may not be elaborate enough to deal with the dimensions of the disaster; nevertheless there is some mechanism which is put into action. Unfortunately, our state has no such mechanism. In the case of such disasters happened earlier as well, no disaster management mechanism was in place. Now that the state has received warning through the recent tremors in Doda-Bhaderwah region, the time has come when the Government should think and take a decision.
Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad paid a visit to the quake affected areas which happens to be his own constituency. Amidst bringing some relief to the sufferers, the good thing that he did was to bring the Vice Chairman of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) along with himself on this visit. So far only the districts of Ladakh and Kupwara were brought on the list of National School Safety Project (NSSP). Actually NDMA had asked all the states to prepare State Disaster Management Plan to meet the exigency whenever it arises. But many states including J&K have not so far chalked out any plan of this nature. J&K falls in the highly active seismic zones IV and V. This disclosure made by the Vice Chairman of NDMA should make the State Government more responsive to the establishment of a Disaster Management Plan. It would be desirable if the plan was subdivided into District Plans and all districts would be monitored for relief and rescue if and when an exigency arises. Doing it on district level is also important in view of not too easy accessibility. Our state is a hilly state and hilly roads are prone to landslides and mud slides in times of rainy season. Even otherwise a mild tremor also sends landslides down hurtling and blocking the only overland linkage. The Vice Chairman of NDMA announced that district Doda would be included in the NSSP and victims of natural disaster would be provided relief and assistance under the provisions of the NSSP. This will bring immediate relief to the affected people.
As the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir is prone to seismic impact, it is heartening to know that the NDMA will extend the scope and authority of NSSP to the entire state through recognized process. There are strong reasons for including the State in NSSP. Natural calamities like earthquake, landslides, floods, fires and water resource management are some of the areas that generally play a part in bringing intermittent disaster to the state. In Kashmir valley and in villages located at higher altitudes over the terrain, residential buildings are generally made of timber. These structures are prone to fire and decay owing to extreme climatic conditions. Hundreds of houses are gutted every year by fire. We would suggest that sufficient fire extinguishers should also be placed in each block when the proposal of setting up of Disaster Management Plan for each district is considered.
More recent situation in the quake affected Chenab Valley region is that the people have been expressing their resentment for Government’s very slow and rather ineffective measures to bring relief to the people. For example, there is requirement of at least ten thousand tents to serve as shelter to the scared people because for the fifth day tremors have been felt and schools are closed down as a measure of safety. A very large number of residential houses have met with cracks and are rendered unsafe. That is the reason why people hesitate to return to their homes and want to spend the night outside. Rains have created more difficulty for them as they cannot sleep in open. The Union Health Minister has announced providing one thousand tents. But that is not enough and even the District Development Commissioner has written to the Divisional Commissioner that ten thousand tents would be needed to accommodate the scared population. It is sad if the people of the area begin to nurse any sense of discrimination.
All this boils down to one important conclusion. The State Government must prepare a Disaster Management Plan and forward it to the NDMA so that a mechanism of permanent nature comes into being in the state. For the time being the Government relief machinery should come into immediate action and take such measures as would bring immediate relief to the people in terms of shelter, food and Medicare.
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