New Delhi: The Delhi government is planning to have an active ‘Incident Response System’ that will kick in during the time of a disaster even as there are also plans to raise a State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) to tackle critical situations in the national Capital, officials said on Tuesday.
According to a senior official, the government is working on developing a proposal for having an Incident Response System, which will comprise officials from different departments.
“Whenever a disaster happens, the steps include evacuation, transporting people to shelter homes, taking care of their food and health needs. The departments that are involved in this exercise more or less remain the same,” the official said.
“With the Incident response System, we will have nodal officers marked for all kinds of situations, who in turn will have people under them,” he added.
Through this system, there will be better coordination and the government will not be found wanting in case of a disaster. “Delhi is the national capital and is quite vulnerable. It is placed in seismic zone IV in the seismic zoning map of India, the second highest in the country. There have been tragic fire incidents and there were floods in 2023 in the city. Such events have prompted the authorities to consider having such a system so that the departments can coordinate in a better way,” he added.
The Yamuna river had reached an all-time high of 208.66 metres on July 13, 2023. The situation led to flooding in several parts of Delhi, including northeast, east and southeast districts and key spots like Tibetan Market and Rajghat.
Apart from a proposal for having an Incident Response System, the government is also planning to raise an State Disaster Response Force (SDRF). A proposal on this will also be presented to Chief Minister Rekha Gupta.
The SDRF, like NDRF, will be involved in rescue efforts in man-made or natural disasters, and will provide authorities the required manpower to handle rescue operations in critical situations.
The official said that these proposals are in the works and will be presented to the chief minister. The CM had proposed setting up an emergency operations centre for better crisis management in her maiden budget speech. Gupta, who also holds the finance portfolio, had noted that being the national capital, Delhi is highly vulnerable to various disasters. Delhi lacks a unified command and control centre to coordinate disaster response among various agencies, she had said.