As we witness the horror in Uttrakhand we all will like to
understand what we learnt from this great tragedy or whether at all we have
learnt anything from it? A week after the tragedy exactly how many people died
in the catastrophe is still a puzzle; from a figure of 882 to 10000 anything is
possible. Isn’t it’s a farce or probably it’s more than that. How many people
went into the state of Uttrakhand ,how many were out there in the holy city of
Kedarnath , how many more have been perished and forgotten forever in the
nearby areas where silt thick by several meters have taken everything inside it
and no one ever will come to know what happened in those remote areas. Yes it’s
sad but true that in 21st century our govt’s don’t have any such
databases or mechanism to keep that information.
But now the question which comes before us is whether this
could have been averted or whether it could have been dealt in a better manner,
the answer to both these questions is a big YES and it has been discussed in
detail in various blogs and news across the country as how Uttrakhand govt.
kept all rules aside to pursue a path of ecological disaster. From small disasters of local nature like we
saw in Uphaar
fire accident or many similar accidents where no preparations were there to
prevent a fire accident to what we saw in Uttrakhand we seems to be ruled by
governments which seems to be working hard not to learn from mistakes.
TIRUPATI
Coming down to my own
state of AP to the temple town of Tirupati the scenario is not much different.
What happened in Kedarnath may happen in our own holy town of Tirupati. The
disaster here may not be so much as from rains but what if a major fire breaks
in the temple town. How well prepared is the town for such an eventuality? A
peep into the audit report (CAG Report AP year ended March 2012) for the temple
down preparedness on the fire safety leaves you down with horror.
Major Metros in India
– Hyderabad
What about the situation
of major cities in the country? Again the picture is grim, in words of the
audit report (CAG Report AP year ended March 2012). “For effective functioning
of the Department, it is imperative to have a comprehensive database containing
the details relating to area-wise distribution of population, service area
villages and houses with category of premises (like hazardous/non-hazardous),
fire stations and their location, geographical mapping of distances between places,
short/traffic free routes, etc. within the jurisdiction of a fire station along
with the water sources in the vicinity. Audit scrutiny revealed that such a
database was not maintained by the DFOs in any of the sampled districts.
Further, the Department had not developed any Standard Operating Procedures for
combating fire in high rise buildings, earthquakes and other natural disasters.”
How on earth will they manage a disaster if it happens if
they do not have these details? And till now we are just discussing fire and rains.
It sends chill down my spine when I think about a major catastrophe like a
nuclear or a biological disaster and how will we deal with it if we can’t even
do a proper firefighting.
Situation across
State - AP
By now you must have accepted
the fate; the situation is as grim across state. As per CAG report SFAC (Standing
Fire Advisory Council) recommended a scale of one fire station for 10 sq km
radius for towns and one for 50 sq km radius in rural/open areas. As per this
norm, the requirement of fire stations in Andhra Pradesh would work out to
5,502.
There were only 253 fire
stations (shortfall: 95 per cent) in the State to cover an area of 2.75 lakh sq
km10. While the Government issued administrative sanction for six new fire stations
(including one in AP Legislative Assembly) in May 2011, as of November 2012,
these have not been set up due to non-provision of funds non-allotment
of land.
·
Not a single fire station was set up during the
period 2007-12.
·
Each fire station covers 16 to 144 sq km in
urban areas against the norm of 10 sq km, and 144 to 1,480 sq km in rural areas
against the norm of 50 sq km.
·
One fire station covers 3 lakh population on an
average as against 50,000 population as per the SFAC norms.
·
875 Mandals (out of 1,12811) and 89 (out of 294)
Assembly constituencies did not have a fire station as of November 2012.
·
The situation of hospitals , malls and other
places of public gathering have the same kind of scary figures
Whom to blame
The govt has to be
blamed for obvious reasons, from poor urban/rural planning to lack of funds,
lack of will power, lack of coordination to insensitive and indifferent attitude
of the government is clearly visible in all the facts laid before. But the
blame does not end with the government we as general public also has little
respect and understanding for a culture of disaster planning. From my own
experience of working in a Hi-Tech industry some of the big names in the
industry hardly have any kind of firefighting or disaster management plan. The
place for the admin in these companies is filled with mediocre talent, people
who have little understanding or appreciation for such a preparedness. Fire
drills are conducted to fulfill legal obligations instead of actually preparing
people for such a disaster, people walking of the normal routes instead of
talking the emergency route are just some of the example of how seriously drills
are taken. Most high rise building will have vehicles parked around the
premises of building which will obstruct any kind of fire tender machine to work
effectively in case of a fire event.
In a country where we jump lanes and drive in the opposite
direction in a one way road I wonder what exactly we try to save, few ml of
petrol or couple of minutes and at what cost? But here also can’t the govt do anything,
when it can spend millions of tax payer amount to publish advertisements on
their party leaders’ birth, death and congratulation messages, the govt could definitely
spend some amount on creating awareness among the people. Countries in
different part of the world have shown that people can be educated to understand
the benefit of such programs. Hope creating awareness on the value of life isn’t
that difficult if the government has the right intentions. Hope the govt start to learn something from this tragedy and comes out of its slumber.
By: Saurabh Sinha
Twitter: @saurabhsinha10
Email Id : saurabhsinha10@gmail.com
Mobile: 91-8008299172
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