Preparing better to fight natural calamities, the district panchayat has decided to form a 1,750-member district-level rescue management wing comprising trained volunteers from various grama panchayats. The plan is to shortlist at least 25 volunteers from each of the 70 grama panchayats and form a district-level team that can promptly respond to distress calls.
As of now, many local panchayats have their own community-level rescue volunteers who have already undergone training in emergency rescue operations and other life saving techniques. Some of them are experts in handling various equipment used to support field-level search operations.
On completion of the selection process, the district-level squad members will be trained by the Fire and Rescue Services wing and resource persons from the National Disaster Response Force. Formation of different sub groups competent in handling situations such as fire outbreak, flood, landslip and electrocution threats is also under consideration.
The support of various voluntary organisations will be sought to shortlist capable candidates who can offer their service free of cost. Suggestions have also come up from various quarters to form a district-level rescue wing of women following the previously piloted Pink Alert mode of the Kudumbashree Mission.
District panchayat president Babu Parassery said a district-level directory comprising the details of people or agencies having rescue accessories would be brought out for the use of public during emergency situations. “Panchayat-level meetings will be convened shortly to collect the details of such individuals and compile the data,” he added.
In Kozhikode district, Kakkodi was the first grama panchayat to have its own Community Rescue Volunteers team to act in times of natural calamities and accidents. It was launched in 2017 with the support of 105 persons. The group was formed by selecting five members from each of the 21 wards in the panchayat.
There was another district-level group of Community Rescue Volunteers launched by the Fire and Rescue Services Department comprising 300 members. Mostly, students from Government Nursing College, Kozhikode and Government Arts and Science College, Meenchanda, were members.
The members were all trained to fight natural calamities, fire breakout, gas leakage, electric short circuit and other similar life-threatening situations.
Responding to previous episodes of landslips and floods, the Revenue Department too had given shape to community rescue volunteers teams in the rural areas of Kozhikode.
With the formation of the district-level team, the operation of smaller groups can be brought to a single platform with a new helpline.
