US-drafted disaster management course for TN?
CHENNAI: TN has shown interest in exploring options for incorporating an introductory 40-hour online course in their professional and academic courses to spread awareness on disasters and disaster risk reduction management, according to Dr Himanshu Grover, co-director of the Institute for Hazard Mitigation and Planning, College of Built Environments, University of Washington.
Grover, who met State commissioner of revenue administration, disaster management and mitigation, said the idea was to source the best practices from the US and elsewhere and study them in Indian context. The idea is not to create a specialised course but an introductory one so that anyone can get enough understanding of the subject.
This comes after US Consulate General, Chennai, tasked Grover with drafting a disaster management course curriculum to be incorporated into existing academic programmes in universities, colleges, and other governmental and non-governmental agencies in India.
Grover, who studied the 2015 Chennai floods, said the idea of building a wall along the banks of River Adyar might not be effective. “In New Orleans, they made dykes but it couldn’t withstand the rains. The wall gives you a false sense of security. People start getting closer to the dykes sensing that there is a wall and nothing will happen. But every wall breaks, especially in the Indian context when it is poorly maintained.”
On reclassifying waterbodies as residential areas, he said one couldn’t build a house on flood plains in the US. “The National Flood Emergency Management Agency told local governments that they can’t build. If somebody builds (a house) there, it won’t get insurance cover... These market interventions stop people from building homes on flood plains.”