STATE TIMES NEWS
LEH: District Administration, Leh, conducted a mock drill for disaster preparedness here on Saturday.
The mock drill was conducted in collaboration with other agencies including councillors, police, army, Indian Air Force, BRO, ITBP, SDRF, etc. As part of the preparedness all the stake holders had assembled in the emergency command centre identified as the conference hall of National Informatics Centre at the top floor of the LREDA office complex just behind Council Secretariat under the chairmanship of CEC LAHDC Dr. Sonam Dawa Lonpo in the morning today for a brief meeting.
DC, Leh who has initiated this mock drill last year said, “The whole exercise was conducted with the intention to reduce the response time on part of the administration and other agencies and to better coordinate their efforts in a disaster like situation.” He added that the focus is to bring in automatic response during a natural catastrophe and to pull in all the available resources with every stakeholder including dozers, tippers and SRTC buses for ready disposal at one place to ensure quick time and response management.
It was decided mutually that in the event of disaster the District Magistrate, SSP, representatives of hill council, district officers, Indian Army, Air Force, BRO, ITBP, etc shall congregate at the CEC which will thereafter serve as the nodal point for decision making, communication and coordination of various efforts towards disaster rescue, relief and rehabilitation.
DC informed that the CEC will also have a wireless set up connected to each camp and a media centre for single line information dissemination ensuring accuracy and accountability to avoid rumors.
The mock drill was conducted as per the standard protocol devised by District Disaster Management Authority last year at four relief camps at different locations in Leh town including Food Craft Institute campus, Government Girls Higher Secondary School Leh, Degree College Leh and Community Centre premise, Solar Colony, Choglamsar under the command of HODs of respective departments.
CEC along with DC, Councilor Upper Leh, ADC, SSP and others visited Sabu Tokpo (Nallah) where ITBP force demonstrated rescue actions near the bridge in crossing people or patients in a flood like disaster across the river with the help of ropes. A demo of tying different kinds of knots with ropes was also presented.
