GUWAHATI:
National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in collaboration with the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) is organising a workshop on “Mid-Term Review & Documentation of Best Practices of Aapda Mitra Scheme” in Guwahati on December 8 and 9.
The inaugural ceremony of the workshop was organised in presence of Revenue Minister Jogen Mohan, NDMA member Shri Rajendra Singh, additional chief secretary AK Bhutani, additional chief secretary Biswaranjan Samal, NDMS finance advisor Ravinesh Kumar, NDMA joint secretary Kunal Satyarthi, ASDMA CEO Gyanendra D Tripathi other dignitaries from the ASDMA.
The workshop provides an opportunity to the project states/UTs to share their experiences, challenges in implementation of the scheme and identify the gaps to make mid-course correction for proper implementation. At the inaugural ceremony, theme song for Aapda Mitra was launched followed by three sessions categorised as northeastern/hilly states/UTs, plain states/UTs and costal states/UTs where in the participating States under each category presented their best practices, challenges and success stories.
Total 31 states and union territories have participated in the workshop which includes Assam, West Bengal, Nagaland, Uttar Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Jammu & Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Tripura, Meghalaya, Puducherry, Karnataka, Chandigarh, Andaman & Nicobar, Kerala, Punjab, Goa, Mizoram, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Orissa, Ladakh, New Delhi, Haryana, Daman & Dew and Bihar.
NDMA implemented a pilot project “Aapda Mitra” in 25 states/UTs covering 30 districts, targeting a pool of 6,000 community volunteers. As on date, 35 States/UTs have signed the MoU for implementation of this programme. Total 21457 volunteers have been trained from 22 states/UTs.
In Assam across 16 districts, 2105 volunteers have been trained so far and 1795 volunteers are yet to be trained. Based on the feedback from the state/UTs and the vision 2024 of the Union government, NDMA, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is up-scaling the “Aapda Mitra Scheme” in order to train one lakh volunteers in 350 districts prone to landslide, cyclone, earthquake and flood. This scheme will be operational by March 31, 2023 which aims to train volunteers with skills to respond to their communities’ immediate needs in the aftermath of a disaster.
Being at the forefront, communities need to be capacitated to respond to threats themselves. It is for this reason in the 7th Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (AMCDRR) in November 2016, Prime Minister proposed a 10-point agenda for DRR that covered issues, tools and approaches to address the critical challenges in achieving sustainable development objectives, focusing on local ‘disaster management system’, academic capacity strengthening and harnessing technological advances. Following this ‘Aapda Mitra scheme’ was launched to introduce the concept of a ‘Local Disaster Management System’ within the community.
The impact of trained volunteers in disaster response can be tremendous, as the extent of damage- in terms of economic and human loss in greatly influenced by the initial response to a disaster.