When we fail to plan, we plan to fail !

Our experience with the tsunami, earthquake, cyclone and so on have made the government realise the importance of having disaster relief plans. These plans are designed to ensure that the administration is able to tackle immediate problems of relief and later on rehabilitation of the victims of the disasters.

In the course of the Mumbai rains also, it was revealed that the government of Maharashtra had prepared a disaster management plan for such an emergency. But the fact was, it was either not immediately available or put into action.

This is my take on Mumbai Disaster Management Plan.

He puts it down in simple words, when asked about the failure of Relief Plans inspite of huge amount of time, effort and money being invested in preparing them.

In order to ensure that disasters do not become unmanageable, there are relief and management plans. But these are not well-known and certainly not known to the people who have to implement them. The net result is that even though considerable efforts have been made in preparing the disastrous relief schemes, they merely remain a scheme on paper. A paradox occurs when a solution prepared in advance is not available when the problem to meet which it was prepared for, actually arises.

In regards to what measures should be taken to ensure high rate of success while implementing disaster management and relief plans, he says…

The first solution is to find a practical method of ensuring that the steps to be taken by various authorities in the event of disasters are widely known.

They are practiced from time to time so that all are familiar with the action to be taken when a disaster like a fire or a major failure of machine, flood or calamity, actually occurs.

Such a practice must be introduced in the case of disaster relief, even when the common people are involved.

Mr. Vittal is spot on when he emphasis on the importance of safety drills in carrying out successful disaster relief plans. But what should be done to change the slack and irresponsible attitude of the officials who are incharge of putting these plans in action ?

This is what i mean…