State needs to frame disaster management rules: Scholar
“Though the National Disaster Management Act was passed 12 years ago, there is no disaster management rules in Tamil Nadu for implementation of the Act. The state has only a disaster management policy and that is not present in the public forum,” said S Jones, Research Scholar on Disaster Management at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.
By : migrator
Update: 2017-12-10 20:52 GMT
Chennai
After cyclone ‘Ockhi’ wreaked havoc in Kanniyakumari district, there were debates about the pre-cyclone measures undertaken by the government and its failure to save fishermen who had gone for deep sea fishing much before the cyclone was announced.
However, experts point their finger at the government for the loss of property and the increased death of fishermen.
Jones said there are three stages of warning - yellow, orange and red. The government had issued warnings only on Thursday morning when the cyclone had passed Kanniyakumari region. Also, it had failed to issue a red alert and had issued only an orange alert.
The main reason behind this is lack of Disaster Management Rules in the state. The Centre had passed a National Disaster Management Act and to implement the Act, the state had to frame rules.
The state has only a Disaster Management Policy and that too is not present in the open domain. It is still present only with the officials and the components of the policy are not yet known. So, the state should immediately frame rules and keep them in the open domain, said Jones.
Jones also said that, fishermen in sea should have been informed about the cyclone through the wireless device that they possessed but no such measures had been initiated.
Deep sea fishing in Kanniyakumari earns several crores worth of foreign exchange and the government which is interested in the foreign exchange revenue from fishermen should also take steps to save them, said Jones.
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