Without DDMPs, district admins in Telangana fighting disasters?

Hyderabad: Does the State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) need to pull up its socks than asking the entire State and district administration down the line to go on firefighting when only disasters are staring at it?

The question assumes significance following the district administrations in the State have been asked to engage in fighting disasters without advance planning.

According to sources, the State government had divided the erstwhile 10 districts into 33 districts. However, the process of updating the district disaster management plans (DDMPs) has not been updated and completed.

Against this backdrop, the revenue, police, irrigation, civic bodies and other departments have been asked to swing into action to ensure safety of people and property in case of floods and unseasonal rain and the like.

Speaking to The Hans India, a senior civil servant pointed out that it is mandatory on the part of a district collector whenever he is transferred to brief the incumbent district collector on the man-made and natural disasters of the district. However, this practice has been given a goby.

Mainly, after formation of the 33 districts the current district collectors have not got any DDMPs to give a structured plan of action that would come automatically into force with defined responsibilities of officials from different departments, and plan of actions that they have to implement. The DDMPs serve as the basic templet which the district collectors have to review whenever an alert is sounded, like the current one, of torrential rain battering across the State.

And, give directions taking into consideration the latest warnings. It is the updated DDMPs which provide the district administrations to give necessary inputs to the SDMA and to seek guidelines or directions for putting in coordinated efforts whenever disaster warnings are sounded. But, for the past three days, the district administrations have been fighting their own battles to address the relief and rescue exercises.

Attempts made to seek a clarification from State Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar on the non-updating of DDMPs yielded no response till late on Tuesday evening.