Bhubaneswar: Looking at the vulnerability of villages in Odisha due to natural disasters, Village Disaster Management Plan(VDMP) is needed to be prepared for every villages with participatory approach by involving men, women, children and vulnerable groups.
Chandra Sekhar Kumar, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj has said that Disaster Management Plan for every villages are needed to be prepared by identifying and prioritizing the requirement.
He has also advised for formation of the Committee for Disaster Management with consensus of the villagers and should include representatives of different social groups.
Addressing the Public Representatives of the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) here in the “National Summit on Climate Change and Developing Resilience in Odisha” organized by Nature Care Initiative (NCI) here on 16 October, Dr.Kumar said that the Plan should be prepared collectively by the Village Committee supported by Gram Panchayat in consultation with consultation with village residents and PRI Members.
Dr.Kumar Disaster Management Plan (DMP) prepared by Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR) provides basic framework to PR Institutions in mitigation, preparedness, response, recovery and reconstruction phases.
DMP of MoPR enables the formulation of Disaster management Plan by every Village, GP, PS and ZPs. It also provides a separate framework on capacity building for Disaster Management Plan of Community and Panchayat.
Additional Secretary of MoPR has advised the State Government to constitute District and Bolck Resource Groups for capacity Building and Training for Disaster Management Plans for villages and gram panchayats.
Dr.Kumar has said that Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) must make cognizance of social realities to ensure that every possible effort is made to make DRR more socially inclusive.
He has harped on issues related to children to be given priority in Disaster Management Plans and those are to be included in the Plans.
In fact to promote healthy growth of children, MoPR has instituted Child Friendly Gram Panchayat Award and this award is encouraging the best performing Gram Panchayats, said he.
Dr.Kumar said due to its unique geo-climatic Odisha along with 26 States and Union Territories are disaster prone and looking at the vulnerability proper implementation of Disaster Management Plan is needed.
He advised for setting up an Exclusive Working Group on Disaster Management under the chairmanship of an expert on Disaster Management.