Is Delhi prepared to face calamities?

Delhi just has 11 quick response teams and 18,000 Civil Defence volunteers

April 27, 2015 09:50 am | Updated 09:50 am IST - New Delhi:

Picture shows residents of Mayur Vihar extention coming out of their apartments soon after an earthquake in New Delhi on Saturday. Photo: Prashant Nakwe

Picture shows residents of Mayur Vihar extention coming out of their apartments soon after an earthquake in New Delhi on Saturday. Photo: Prashant Nakwe

Three years after it became ground zero for arguably the largest natural disaster-themed mock drill in the country, Delhi’s preparedness for such contingencies has more than waned, if not dangerously declined, due to sheer inaction by successive governments, highly-placed sources say.

According to senior government officials, the Delhi Government currently has 200-odd quick reaction teams (QRTs) sanctioned solely for disaster management objectives; one-fifth of the total strength sanctioned for its Civil Defence volunteer programme; and none of the 70 disaster management lanes proposed for each of its arterial stretches.

This is despite the execution of a mega mock drill or the Delhi mock drill – based on the Kangra earthquake of 1905, which saw the participation of 1.5 crore Delhi residents and had been carried out simultaneously at as many as a thousand locations – on the morning of February 15, 2012.

“In 2011, student representatives from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai, had made a series of presentations to the Sheila Dikshit-led government on the cyclical nature of earthquakes in the Himalayan belt; the tragedy that has struck Nepal was, more or less, apprehended by them as early as four years ago,” said an official.

“Based purely on historical patterns, the apprehensions suggested that an earthquake measuring around six on the Richter scale – one of which has been seen to occur every 150 years – could occur across the states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and Delhi following which multi-state earthquake preparedness exercises were conducted by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) at each of these locations,” the official said.

However, Delhi, with its congested neighbourhoods and abundance of unauthorised colonies, which are home to more than 50 lakh people, supposedly emerged as the biggest concern for the NDMA.

What followed was the year-long exercise aimed at preparing the Capital for the very mock drill in question with exercises beginning in small localities gradually being extended to one district, then three, and finally leading up to the city-wide mega mock drill.

After observers and experts privy to the analytics of the said mock drill pointed out certain discrepancies pertaining to response time by various agencies in addition to similar objections, several measures were suggested and seemed to be en route to implementation – until the tremors of Saturday’s massive earthquake in Nepal shook the Capital.

“Currently, Delhi just has one QRT attached to each of its 11 districts and there are just 18,000 Civil Defence volunteers out of a sanctioned strength of 90,000,” said the official.

Meanwhile, a proposal to create 70 disaster-management lanes, painted in bold red on the extreme right side of stretches, to remain exclusively empty for emergency vehicles, has been stuck for the past two years. This is despite the fact that multiple lanes were especially created and operated with much efficiency, during the Commonwealth Games of 2010.

“Delhi cannot be allowed to take a chance in the face of natural calamities any longer; several departments have been asked to prepare proposals aimed at ensuring disaster management to be presented on Monday,” the official added.

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