Members of the civil society led by Coimbatore Corporation and Park Group of Institutions came together on Monday to discuss ways to put in place a Coimbatore rapid response team.
Corporation Commissioner K. Vijayakarthikeyan said that if a plan was put in place, it would help government agencies and society confidently face and mitigate disasters. For this, the city had to anticipate disasters, though it would be a difficult exercise.
In the preparation of disaster management or rapid response teams, the right people with skill sets should be identified and they need to be given roles that matched their skill sets.
V.R. Hari Balaji, National Consultant-Disaster Risk Reduction, spoke of his experience and learning from several disasters.
He said that though each arm of the government had a disaster action plan in place, the plans needed to be brought together so that during emergency all departments worked in unison.
He suggested that members of the civil society, government agencies, and experts meet soon to put in place a plan in the next three months or so.
He also spoke on the importance of regularly carrying out drills to keep high the level of preparedness.
Anusha Ravi of Park Group of Institutions said the need for such a plan for Coimbatore and the Monday’s meeting had been the result of thinking for quite time. One of the steps was to bring all stakeholders together and the meeting was an effort in that direction.
