Following last Sunday's tragedy in the Beas river, the Centre is now contemplating allotment of at least two permanent companies of the National Disaster Response Force in the State, according to highly placed sources in the Union government. The mountain State with exceedingly fragile strata is prone to disasters like road accidents, flash floods, cloud bursts, landslides and snow storms in the high altitude districts.
The slow pace in the retrieval of bodies following the latest tragedy has drawn the attention of authorities towards the need to permanently station NDRF companies in the State. Road accidents mainly involving vehicles falling into deep gorges and overflowing rivers have become the biggest killer here.
In the absence of expert NDRF troops, the State rescue agencies and paramilitary forces hardly ever make any breakthrough at the time of accidents. They are not equipped with required tools like underwater video cameras, unmanned surveillance vehicles or any high beam technology vehicles. In the ongoing search operation, such apparatus has been commissioned by NDRF from its centre in Pune. Scores of bodies get washed away in high spate rivers every year in Himachal. The swelled up bodies either surface on their own after months or get buried in the silt forever.
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Demands for having permanent NDRF companies in Himachal have been raised by various quarters including the former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal.