उपराज्यपाल, दिल्ली

The 38th Meeting of the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) was held today under the Chairmanship of Lt. Governor, Shri VK Saxena. Vice Chairman of DDMA, Chief Minister, Shri Arvind Kejriwal and Revenue Minister, Shri Kailash Gehlot apart from the Chief Secretary, Spl. Commissioner (Police), Divisional Commissioner, Secretary (Health), VC, DDA, Commissioner MCD and top representatives of Army, NDMA, NIDM, National Institute of Seismology and all District Magistrates were present in the meeting. 

Held in the wake of the disastrous earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, the meeting today took stock of the preparedness and deliberated upon charting and augmenting the way forward, in case of an earthquake in the City, which fell in the ‘High Damage Risk Zone IV’ on the seismic map of India. The prevalent situation of H3N2 Flu, H1N1 Flu and COVID 19 were also discussed in the meeting. 
Stressing that disasters did not give prior information before manifesting themselves, the Lt. Governor emphasized upon the need to be completely prepared to face eventuality, even if it entailed erring on the side of caution. Recounting his experience of the Gujarat earthquake that had caused widespread destruction, Shri Saxena said that Delhi needed to be fully prepared to handle any disaster and preparations to this effect should be put in place from today itself.

In this regard, the Lt. Governor outlined the following and asked for works to be started on the same in a time bound manner; 

1. Retrofitting of all Schools, Hospitals, Police Stations, other critical government offices and vulnerable buildings especially in the ‘Special Area’ and old Delhi localities, according to the Earthquake Resilient Building Code. 
2. Identifying Open spaces across the Capital for rescue operations in the event of an earthquake.
3. Identifying Hospitals at the level of every District and Sub Division for emergency response.
4. Broadening of narrow lanes and by lanes to ensure access for ambulances, fire tenders and rescue teams in event of an emergency.
5. Establishing connectivity with Railway Telephone Network so as to ensure communication in case of other means collapsing.

The Chief Minister on his part stressed upon the need to compile and tabulate all reports/recommendations of different committees constituted from time to time with regards to mitigation of disasters and thereafter affects and also underlined the need to make government offices like the Delhi Secretariat and Police Headquarter, earthquake resistant through retrofitting. Shri Kejriwal underlined that once all reports were collated and compiled along with the actions taken on them so far, the future course of action may be decided.

It was agreed that the Divisional Commissioner, who is also the Nodal Officer and Convenor of DDMA, will undertake this exercise and put it up for consideration and further directions of the DDMA in its next meeting, to be held at the earliest. 

It was brought out by the representative of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), that while all other States had put into place their own State Disaster Relief Forces (SDRFs) to work in tandem with the National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF), Delhi was yet to effectively do so. He urged the DDMA to expeditiously get a Delhi SDRF constituted. It was decided to do the same at the earliest. 

The matter of a proper office/building to locate the State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA), yet not being fully available was also flagged in the meeting and a decision was taken to address the same in a time bound manner. 

With regards to addressing the trend of rising H3N2 Flu and COVID cases, it was decided that though not mandatorily, protocols like masking, physical distancing, hand hygiene and sanitation, preparedness of hospitals, etc. needed to be followed to the farthest possible extent. 

It was also informed that ‘Aapda Mitra’ Scheme of enrolling and training Disaster Relief Volunteers had been rolled out in Delhi and 1800 Volunteers had been trained and enrolled till now. It was agreed upon by DDMA to augment the number of Volunteers, train them and make information about them readily available on the Websites of DDMA at all levels, for access by people in need of any assistance during a disaster. 
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Opening remarks of Lt. Governor and Chairman, DDMA at the 38th Meeting of DDMA
 
At the outset, I would like to welcome Hon’ble CM, Hon’ble Ministers and other members to the 38th Meeting of DDMA. It is a matter of satisfaction that this meeting is not being held to discuss the COVID pandemic.  
Delhi our National Capital is the 2nd most populated Mega City in the world. Approximately 2.5 crores people reside in about 35 lakhs housing units in different kind of habitable areas like planned colonies, regularized unauthorized colonies, JJ clusters, slums, unauthorized colonies.

Delhi is situated in Zone-IV and partly in Zone-V of seismic zone indicating that it is at a high risk of earthquakes. 
Recently we learnt about the devastating consequence of earthquake in Turkey and Syria causing more than 50 thousand human casualties and immeasurable loss of property. 
Since the housing pattern in Delhi is not in accordance with the building codes it makes the residents extremely vulnerable in the event of an earthquake of even relatively higher magnitude. It is further compounded with the fact that approaches of these colonies are extremely narrow making movement of people and vehicle almost impossible in cases of such disasters.

The habitation pattern in the city is prone to other disaster like fire, water logging and flash flood. All of us are aware of these harsh realities in respect of Delhi. 
Earlier during the last two years, DDMA under the overall guidance of NDMA handled the pandemic period. I am hopeful that we would have learnt lessons from that period and used it to improve our response mechanism in dealing with such disasters. H3N2 flu incidences are on the rise. We must be ready to face the challenge.

It is known that preparedness is the best remedy to mitigate the effects of any disaster. This requires multipronged strategies to deal with disaster, like,

1. Designing effective disaster management plans in consultation with all the stakeholders and putting it to test through mock demonstrations/drills on regular basis.
2. Retrofitting of all lifeline buildings like hospitals, communication centres, fire stations, police stations, etc. to make them earthquake resistant. 
3. Launching massive awareness camping on regular basis to make every resident aware of basic knowhow to deal with any disaster. Regular mock drills in schools, colleges, colonies must be organized.
4. Enhancing capacity of our disaster management teams through regular training 
5. Using technology to improve our actions during disasters efficiently.
6. All District Magistrates heading the District Disaster Management Authorities are required to activate the Disaster Management Cells and keep testing its functioning on regular basis.
7. We are living in the capital city of the country which takes pride in extending help to other countries at the times of disaster. It is utmost important that all institutions must gear up for coordinated approach in Delhi to deal with any disaster effectively with the objective of zero loss to human life.
8. Disaster mitigation must be mainstreamed and factored in, in all our approaches including construction activities, school education system, RWAs, government department so that we are better prepared as disaster resilient society.
9. I am happy to note that NDMA has time and again organized mock drills particularly at Delhi Metro to test the preparedness. Such exercises must be done on regular basis and not as a consolation activity. I wish the deliberations today all success. 

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