To deal better with disasters, Andhra Pradesh will soon have a customised, online decision making command centre to deal with natural disasters as well as other incidents.
Called AP Critical Operations, Strategic Management and Incident Management (APCOSMIC), any information related to disasters or incidents like a fire, a road accident or flooding will first come to the command centre. From there, it will be conveyed to the department concerned.
It will start functioning from March and will be fully functional in a year, according to Commissioner of AP State Disaster Management Authority Prasanna Kumar Venkatesh.
Such systems are available only in Europe and the U.S.A.
“A Geo-spatial lab offering multi-hazard risk assessment models would also be set up,” he said on the sidelines of a workshop on disaster management at GITAM Deemed to be University on Monday. It would analyse risks in a project.
Giving an example, he said it would give models of what would happen in a specific time and the areas it would affect in case flooding of Kondaveetu Vagu took place.
Training for youth
Stating that a lot had been learnt since the Hudhud cyclone, he pointed out the five lakh people had been evacuated in a day during the Titli cyclone that hit Srikakulam district hard and all services were restored in 10 days. “Training youth as volunteers in disaster risk management will be undertaken under the World Bank-funded Community-Based Disaster Risk Management Programme in Andhra Pradesh,” Mr. Venkatesh said.
Local youth would be selected and capacity building exercises will be undertaken for them so that they would be the first to react in case of a disaster, he said, recalling the role of youth in saving several lives during the floods in Chennai.
