K.B.S. Sidhu, IAS, Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab-cum -Director General, MGSIPA Launches the Event
Chandigarh: August 19, 2020:Aiming to sensitize the administrative authorities and other stakeholders on disaster management and to developtheir capacities to face the challenges in emergent situations, Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration, Punjab, (MGSIPA) in collaboration with National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) organized online three-day training programme on "Incident Response System: Basic & Intermediate”for Northern States (Part I).
Launching the first event of its kind in the Northern region, Mr. K.B.S. Sidhu, IAS, Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab-cum-Director General, MGSIPA emphasized the need of close and effective coordination at individual, societal and institutional levels to undertake preparedness measures to minimize the effect of any kind of disaster and ensure a swift response to reduce the losses in case of occurrence ofsuch natural calamities. He said that various stakeholder departments such as Health, Police, Firefighting, Civil Defence, Power and Traffic Control must create an"Incident Response Mechanism"in their respective organizations to immediatelycome in action and join vigorouslyas warriorsin rescue operations in such hazardous situations.
Sharing his practical knowledge and experiences based on his long administrative career in different capacities at state and national level, Mr. Sidhu said that in case of floods and other natural disasters, the top priority of the administration should beonsaving human lives followed by focus on livestock and other properties of the inhabitants. He said that collective and coordinated endeavour should be putby all the concerned authorities and take all steps to minimize the loss. He said that District Administration must tackle all the situations tactfully like VIP Visits, Media Management and People's Involvement to get more fruitful results. He said that blame game of any kind must be avoided by the rescue operation agencies which may hamper the rescue and relief work besides shaking the peoples' confidence. He expressed gratitude to the NIDM and its experts for joining hands with the MGSIPA for organizing the event.
The NIDM experts Mr. Balaji Singh, South Asia Expert, USFS and Mr. Shekher Chaturvedi, Assistant Professor, NIDM highlighted the importance of the online training programme on Incident Response System and expressed satisfaction overhuge response from the participants. As per rough estimates over 885 participants from different organizations registered themselves for this three-day online training programme. Col. Dalbir Singh, GM (Training), MGSIPA Punjab proposed vote of thanks.