VIJAYAWADA:‘’With advance planning and preparedness and active participation of all stakeholders, not only (number of) deaths but also (people’s) illnesses, induced by heatwaves could be brought down,’’ said RK Jain, member, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) as he spoke in the two-day ‘National Workshop on Preparedness, Mitigation and Management of Heatwave’, organised by the NDMA in collaboration with the Government of Andhra Pradesh, in the city on Wednesday.
Jain was the chief guest for the inaugural session of the workshop that began on Wednesday. Speaking on the occasion, he said that the workshop had the aim of sensitising States to the need of preparing and implementing their heatwave action plans in line with guidelines formulated by the NDMA.
“In 2015, the number of deaths occurring due to heatwave was higher than (the number of) deaths caused by any other disaster. With this background, NDMA came up with a set of guidelines for managing heatwaves in 2016. We closely reviewed and monitored the preparedness of and actions taken by heatwave-prone States and with the combined efforts of all stakeholders, especially the State governments, were able to bring down the number of deaths drastically,’’ he said.
NDMA joint secretary Dr V Thiruppugazh emphasised on the importance of the heat action plans and a robust database. “This timely workshop will help heatwave-prone States in drawing up their plans for 2018, as heatwave onslaught in various parts of the country typically starts by the later half of March. Last year, the effective implementation of heat action plans by some of the worst-affected States brought down the number of heatwave-induced deaths in the country by about 50 per cent,” he said. He added that awareness campaigns were needed to sensitise communities to take measures to reduce the impact of heatwaves.
‘’As many as 1168 automatic weather stations in the State are regularly monitoring the temperatures on a daily basis and weather predictions will be given to the concerned officials and district collectors in advance,’’ said MV Seshagiri Babu, Managing Director, Andhra Pradesh State Disaster Management Authority (APSDMA).
Delegates from 17 States participated in the workshop and discussed the nuances of fine-tuning action plans to understand the immediate requirements of a region as well as the most suited mitigation measures for the entire heat-wave season.