IE: BMC to include terror in disaster management plan: December 09, 2008

TWO weeks after terrorists stormed several landmark buildings in Mumbai and held the city under siege for over 60 hours, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is gearing up to make amendments in its Disaster Management Plan and include a chapter on terror in addition to floods and earthquake.Due to the absence of any co-ordinated ‘response and mobilization of resources’ facility in times of terror, the civic administration will soon contact the Army, defence personnel and even brainstorm on easing out protocols for the fire department-which cannot start action unless called upon.

The civic administration already has a disaster management plan ready for the city under United Nations Development Programme, which has a detailed action plan to tackle the situation during floods, earthquakes and other natural and man made calamities. “But now terror attacks have become more frequent in the city and it is important to have an action plan ready to tackle them. The response time has to re duce and there should be a planned resource mobilization,” said joint municipal commissioner, disaster cell, S S Shinde.

BMC is already preparing an upgraded disaster management plan with the help of Kyoto University, Japan and the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi as a pilot for G North ward. Shinde said that both organisations will be told to look into the terror aspect in disaster management. “We will also try and talk to exArmymen and others in defence regarding the action plan,” he said.

The department is also considering filling the loopholes during disaster which arise due to protocols or due to lack of mobilization. “During fire, the fire department cannot move to the spot unless they receive a call. This is a major hazard which needs to be eased,” Shinde said.

Also even after receiving a disaster call, the civic authorities are not able to mobilize them to the spot many a times and fail to give a ‘good response’. “We have an inventory of the resources like hanging ladders, snorkels but it is important that the right kind of machinery reaches the location as per the requirement at that particular time,” he said.

Sirens with civil defence to be co-ordinated Civic officials said that civil defence has a siren system with 250 sirens attached from each office to the control room at Fort. At the time of disaster or any attack, a siren is pressed which warns civilians about emergency and directs them to leave the place immediately. However at the time of the terror attack on 26/11, there was no such siren warning at the CST station, civic officials said. “We will contact the civil defence officials and try to co-ordinate siren system into DMP,” Shinde said.

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