Chandigarh forms disaster management authority and incident response teams for emergency preparedness
Chandigarh: The State Disaster Management Authority has been formed in Chandigarh. Along with this,
Incident Response Teams
have been established to be prepared for any disaster, ensuring that all work is completed on time and with coordination.
The role of the incident response teams is to ensure that during a disaster, every officer or team plays its part, and the rescue work of people is completed quickly, on time, and with coordination. The chairman of the State Disaster Management Authority will be the administrator, and the chief secretary has been appointed as the chief executive officer (ex officio). Members of Parliament have also been included in the authority, and six officers of the administration have been made its members.
Also, the administrator has formed Incident Response Teams (IRT). These teams will ensure the normalisation of the situation, the rescue of people, and other tasks in any kind of disaster. The work of each officer and unit is determined, and they will work in coordination with each other. The secretary home will be the additional responsible officer, the district magistrate will be the incident commander, and during emergencies, standing orders will be issued with the approval of the responsible officer.
Priorities will be identified, including planning of search, rescue and relief distribution, coordination with higher authority, demand for additional resources, setting up of the Incident Command Post, preparing the Incident Action Plan, media coordination, recommendation for demobilisation, and setting up of the Incident Response System.
The officers or units in the IRT include the information and media officer, safety officer, operations section chief, staging area manager, response branch director, transportation branch director, planning section officer, resource unit, situation unit, documentation unit, demobilisation unit, logistics section chief, service branch director, communication unit, medical unit, food unit, support branch director, resource providing unit, ground support unit, financial branch, time unit, and others.
The chief secretary, UT Chandigarh, has also constituted a state-level committee for the preparation of a detailed contingency plan for the evacuation of vulnerable populations, identification of places/shelters for their temporary settlement, ensuring essential supplies to these persons, and providing any essential service required during a hostile scenario.
The secretary estate, Chandigarh administration, is the chairperson of the committee.
The members include the chief engineer, director food & supplies, UT, and joint commissioner (estate), municipal corporation. The director of information technology is the member secretary.
Chandigarh: The State Disaster Management Authority has been formed in Chandigarh. Along with this, Incident Response Teams have been established to be prepared for any disaster, ensuring that all work is completed on time and with coordination.
The role of the incident response teams is to ensure that during a disaster, every officer or team plays its part, and the rescue work of people is completed quickly, on time, and with coordination. The chairman of the State Disaster Management Authority will be the administrator, and the chief secretary has been appointed as the chief executive officer (ex officio). Members of Parliament have also been included in the authority, and six officers of the administration have been made its members.
Also, the administrator has formed Incident Response Teams (IRT). These teams will ensure the normalisation of the situation, the rescue of people, and other tasks in any kind of disaster. The work of each officer and unit is determined, and they will work in coordination with each other. The secretary home will be the additional responsible officer, the district magistrate will be the incident commander, and during emergencies, standing orders will be issued with the approval of the responsible officer.
Priorities will be identified, including planning of search, rescue and relief distribution, coordination with higher authority, demand for additional resources, setting up of the Incident Command Post, preparing the Incident Action Plan, media coordination, recommendation for demobilisation, and setting up of the Incident Response System.
The officers or units in the IRT include the information and media officer, safety officer, operations section chief, staging area manager, response branch director, transportation branch director, planning section officer, resource unit, situation unit, documentation unit, demobilisation unit, logistics section chief, service branch director, communication unit, medical unit, food unit, support branch director, resource providing unit, ground support unit, financial branch, time unit, and others.
The chief secretary, UT Chandigarh, has also constituted a state-level committee for the preparation of a detailed contingency plan for the evacuation of vulnerable populations, identification of places/shelters for their temporary settlement, ensuring essential supplies to these persons, and providing any essential service required during a hostile scenario.
The secretary estate, Chandigarh administration, is the chairperson of the committee. The members include the chief engineer, director food & supplies, UT, and joint commissioner (estate), municipal corporation. The director of information technology is the member secretary.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indian Express
2 hours ago
- Indian Express
Census, followed by delimitation or freeze? The road ahead, likely legal challenges
The current freeze on delimitation — which for the past 50 years has based the allocation of seats to states in the Lok Sabha on the census figures of 1971 — will expire in 2026, unless Parliament passes another Constitutional Amendment Bill by then to extend it. The reason: the Constitution under Article 82 mandates delimitation after each census to readjust the seats as per changes in population. It says, 'Upon the completion of each census, the allocation of seats in the House of the People to the States and the division of each State into territorial constituencies shall be readjusted by such authority and in such manner as Parliament may by law determine.' Article 81 of the Constitution provides for the 'one person, one vote, one value' principle. Article 81 (2) (a) says, 'There shall be allotted to each State a number of seats in the House of the People in such manner that the ratio between that number and the population of the state is, so far as practicable, the same for all States.' Article 81 (2) (b) says, 'Each State shall be divided into territorial constituencies in such manner that the ratio between the population of each constituency and number of seats allotted to it is, so far as practicable, the same throughout the State.' With the collection of data for the next census ending by March 1, 2027, the release of census data could coincide with the expiry of the freeze on delimitation. This freeze was put in place first for 25 years through a constitutional amendment in 1976, and again by 25 years through a constitutional amendment in 2002. The reason for the freeze was the concern of the southern states that because their population had stabilised by then, and the population of some northern states had begun to grow at a brisk pace, their representation in the Lok Sabha would go down. To freeze or not to freeze With the Constitution ensuring equality of representation to citizens and not states of the Union, and mandating delimitation every 10 years to adjust the allocation of the seats to population, the only way in which the southern states will not lose representation would have to be another Constitutional amendment. However, with government sources saying that the idea is to have delimitation and then women's reservation in the Lok Sabha elections of 2029, the census is likely to be followed by delimitation. The website of the Election Commission of India says, 'Under Article 82 of the Constitution, the Parliament by law enacts a Delimitation Act after every census. After the commencement of the Act, the Central Government constitutes a Delimitation Commission. This Delimitation Commission demarcates the boundaries of the Parliamentary Constituencies as per provisions of the Delimitation Act. The present delimitation of constituencies has been done on the basis of 2001 census figures under the provisions of Delimitation Act, 2002. Notwithstanding the above, the Constitution of India was specifically amended in 2002 not to have delimitation of constituencies till the first census after 2026. Thus, the present Constituencies carved out on the basis of the 2001 census shall continue to be in operation till the first census after 2026.' In other words, the release of census data will be followed by the passage of the Delimitation Bill in Parliament, unless Parliament suspends the constitutionally mandated process by amending the Constitution to freeze delimitation by, say, another 25 years. Potential legal issues Once the Delimitation Commission is constituted by the Centre, it will use the latest census data to redraw Lok Sabha constituencies. However, it will be bound by Article 81 of the Constitution to redraw these on the basis of the latest population data, unless Article 81 is itself amended. Article 81 may anyway require amendments. For instance, since it limits the strength of the Lok Sabha to 550 under clauses (a) and (b), the strength will have to revised through a constitutional amendment so as to ensure that one MP does not represent too large a population, and to pave way for the reservation of women without cutting down the seats available to men. Article 81 as of now makes one exception to the 'one person, one vote, one value' principle, by giving small states and Union Territories at least one seat even if their population is very low. Since the Constitution is clear about the centrality of this principle in all other cases, the only way the south does not lose relative strength in the Lok Sabha will be by amending Article 81 (2) (a). However, any move to amend Article 81 (2) (a) would be liable to challenge in the Supreme Court as violative of the right to equality enshrined in Articles 14 and 15. The fear in south India is that if delimitation is based purely on population, northern states will get much more seats and thus a very large voice in Parliament. But if the law is amended and they get more seats than they would through the population criterion, then voters in the north and the south are not being treated equally. Even if the principle of reasonable classification — likes be treated alike — is evoked, it will be based on the argument that better social and economic indicators require special protection for southern states. This logic is exactly opposite to the one that permits reservation on the grounds that the state can make special provisions for the backward classes. The delimitation question, thus, has no easy answers, and is likely to lead to much litigation. Vikas Pathak is deputy associate editor with The Indian Express and writes on national politics. He has over 17 years of experience, and has worked earlier with The Hindustan Times and The Hindu, among other publications. He has covered the national BJP, some key central ministries and Parliament for years, and has covered the 2009 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls and many state assembly polls. He has interviewed many Union ministers and Chief Ministers. Vikas has taught as a full-time faculty member at Asian College of Journalism, Chennai; Symbiosis International University, Pune; Jio Institute, Navi Mumbai; and as a guest professor at Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi. Vikas has authored a book, Contesting Nationalisms: Hinduism, Secularism and Untouchability in Colonial Punjab (Primus, 2018), which has been widely reviewed by top academic journals and leading newspapers. He did his PhD, M Phil and MA from JNU, New Delhi, was Student of the Year (2005-06) at ACJ and gold medalist from University Rajasthan College in Jaipur in graduation. He has been invited to top academic institutions like JNU, St Stephen's College, Delhi, and IIT Delhi as a guest speaker/panellist. ... Read More
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
2 hours ago
- Business Standard
Cash row: Congress seeks SC report on allegations against Justice Varma
The Congress has asked the government to share with it the report of a Supreme Court-appointed committee that probed graft allegations against Justice Yashwant Varma so that it can firm up its stand on the issue of his impeachment before the Monsoon session of Parliament, party sources said on Thursday. The government, however, is yet to respond, the sources said. Several burnt sacks containing cash were allegedly discovered at Justice Varma's residence in Delhi after a fire broke out there in March, when he was a Delhi High Court judge. Though the judge, who was later transferred to the Allahabad High Court, has claimed ignorance about the cash, the Supreme Court-appointed committee indicted him after speaking to a number of witnesses and recording his statement. Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju has initiated discussions with all political parties to bring an impeachment motion against Justice Varma in Parliament's Monsoon session, starting from July 21. The Congress sources said the party has asked Rijiju to share the report of the committee so that it can firm up its stand on the issue of impeachment. The minister is yet to get back to the Congress, they said. Last week, Rijiju underlined the government's resolve to take all political parties on board in moving the impeachment motion against Justice Varma, saying corruption in the judiciary cannot be approached through a "political prism". He said the government wants the exercise to be a "collaborative effort". According to the Judges (Inquiry) Act of 1968, once a motion to remove a judge is admitted in any of the Houses, the speaker or the chairman, as the case may be, will constitute a three-member committee to investigate the grounds on which the removal (or, in popular term, impeachment) has been sought. The committee consists of the chief justice of India (CJI) or a Supreme Court judge, the chief justice of one of the 25 high courts and a " distinguished jurist". Rijiju, however, has said the present case is "slightly different" as an in-house committee formed by former CJI Sanjiv Khanna has already submitted its report. "So what is to be done in this matter, we will take a call," he said earlier. The minister had said the process has to be followed, but how to "integrate the inquiry already conducted" needs to be decided. Following the Supreme Court's in-house inquiry, former CJI Sanjeev Khanna is believed to have prodded Varma to resign but he dug in his heels. The apex court has since transferred him to his parent cadre, the Allahabad High Court, where he has not been assigned any judicial work. Former CJI Khanna had written to the president and the prime minister, recommending Justice Varma's impeachment.
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
3 hours ago
- Business Standard
India suffered 3 setbacks from US: Cong blames govt's foreign policy
Jairam Ramesh said the US' recent statements were both a "challenge and a warning" and required serious thinking Press Trust of India New Delhi The Congress on Thursday claimed India has suffered three "huge diplomatic setbacks" from the US which is constantly hyphenating India and Pakistan and that the Modi government's foreign policy has "failed" as it is driven by domestic political considerations. Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said the US' recent statements were both a "challenge and a warning" and required serious thinking "when the PM is only interested in playing divisive politics". He also said Prime Minister Narendra Modi should leave aside his "stubbornness" to call an all-party meeting and a special session of Parliament. "Yesterday, Indian foreign policy and diplomacy received three huge, undeniable setbacks. The General of the US Central Command gives a statement that Pakistan is a phenomenal partner in counter-terrorism. What is phenomenal? On May 2, 2011, Osama Bin Laden was found in Abbottabad and you are calling that country a phenomenal partner," Ramesh told PTI. So, the first "setback" is the US general giving a "clean chit" to Pakistan, he said. US Army General Michael Kurilla, Commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM), has said Pakistan is "in an active counterterrorism fight right now and has been a phenomenal partner in the counterterrorism world". The United States has to have a relationship with Pakistan and with India, and noted that it cannot be a "binary switch" where Washington cannot have ties with Islamabad if it has relations with New Delhi, Kurilla said during a testimony before the US House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. Ramesh further said, "Failed Marshal Asim Munir, who gave such inflammatory, incendiary and provocative statements, talked about the two-nation theory, Hindus and Muslims, and there is a direct relation between his statement and what happened in Pahalgam on April 22. Same Asim Munir gets a special invitation to go to America on US Army Day on June 14, which is incomprehensible." The third setback is that the US state department spokesperson again repeated that it was US President Donald Trump who was responsible for bringing about a de-escalation between India and Pakistan, the Congress leader said. He said again the US has hyphenated India and Pakistan while Prime Minister Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar are completely silent on it. "He (Modi) meets members of delegations but does not have time for an all-party meeting to meet leaders of political parties. Our democracy is based on political parties not on individuals," Ramesh said. Leaders of opposition parties have written to the PM to call a special session of Parliament but the government has rejected the request and instead announced the monsoon session from July 21. "Is he (PM Modi) going to allow a special debate on our challenges with China and Pakistan, and now our challenge with the US. We thought that we were having an extended honeymoon with the US but it has delivered three huge setbacks to Indian diplomacy yesterday," Ramesh said. This is a "failure" of the government of India, of the PM, of his External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, of his Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and of his drum beaters, Ramesh said. "I am shocked that these setbacks have come two days after the prime minister has met the delegation of MPs," he told PTI. Ramesh accused the PM of playing politics by picking and choosing individuals. "We are saying call an all-party meeting, an all-party meeting where you don't determine who will be there like you did in picking delegations," the Congress leader said. He alleged that the government's diplomacy is "totally domestic oriented". "Whatever we do abroad -- how does it play domestically? It is for domestic consumption. All observers are saying that these delegations were for domestic consumption," he said. Ramesh claimed that the foreign policy of the Modi government is being dictated by domestic political considerations. Earlier, in a post in Hindi on X, Ramesh asserted that decades of diplomatic progress cannot be allowed to be weakened so easily. "It is reported that Pakistani Army Chief General Asim Munir has been invited to the event organised in Washington DC on the occasion of US Army Day (14 June). This news is a big setback for India from a diplomatic and strategic point of view," Ramesh said. "This is the same person who used provocative and inciting language just before the Pahalgam terror attack - the question arises what is America's intention," the Congress general secretary said. Recently, the head of the US Central Command also stated that Pakistan is a "great partner" of America in the fight against terrorism, Ramesh said. "The Modi government is saying that Operation Sindoor is still going on. In such a situation, the Pakistani army chief's participation as a guest in the US Army Day is definitely a matter of serious concern," he said. Ramesh said the Trump administration is constantly making statements which can only be interpreted to mean that it is "hyphenating" India and Pakistan. "The prime minister is welcoming the delegations that returned after informing the entire world, including the US, about Pakistan's role in supporting terrorism, and at the same time, such news is coming from Washington DC makes India's diplomatic position even more uncomfortable," Ramesh said. "The prime minister should now leave aside his stubbornness and concern for prestige and call an all-party meeting and a special session of Parliament, so that the nation can clearly express its collective will and a concrete roadmap can be presented to the country," he said. The statements from the US come days after an all-party Indian parliamentary delegation visited the country to convey India's strong resolve to combat terrorism emanating from Pakistan in the wake of the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack that claimed 26 lives.
