Govt can make rules, but people should cooperate to avert disasters: Karnataka Chief Secretary

Bengaluru, Jun 20 (PTI) Disaster management requires full cooperation from the general public -- governments can make rules, but it is the community that should be more aware and responsible, said Karnataka Chief Secretary Shalini Rajneesh on Friday.

Rajneesh was inaugurating "CBDM India 2025", a two-day international conference on 'Disaster Resilience: Community-Based Systems to Save Lives and Preserve Health'.

"For instance, at the recent landslide in Uttara Kannada district's Shirali Ankola, loss of nine lives of a family could have been averted if the house and the tea shop was not built on landslide prone area," said Rajneesh.

The Chief Secretary also pointed out that there are 201 flood prone locations in the city. "In most of these locations, buildings have not taken proper approval from the government authorities. So, people should make responsible choices if they do not want to be caught unaware," she added.

Addressing the inaugural session virtually, Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (Retd), PVSM, Member, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Government of India, also agreed that awareness and community engagement are the two most important things in the domain of disaster management.

"Disasters are not just humanitarian crises -- they can change the course of history. The 1970 cyclone in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, played a catalytic role in the political events that followed, ultimately leading to the birth of a new nation and unprecedented migration of people to India," he pointed out.

According to him, in any high-risk environment -- be it a conflict zone or a floodplain -- the community is always the first responder.

"India's resilience must be built bottom-up. Along with the government's proactive role, it is community awareness, engagement, and grassroots cohesion that truly determine our ability to withstand and recover from disasters," he added.

The conference is being organised by Jeeva Raksha Trust, in collaboration with Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), Government of Karnataka, Indian Medical Association (IMA), Indian Railway Institute of Disaster Management (IRIDM), and premier national agencies including, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS).

It is being held at the JN Tata Auditorium of IISc.

Ram K Nair, Technical Director of Jeeva Raksha and Organising Secretary of CBDM 2025; Dr M R Seetharaman IMA; Dr Pratima Murthy, Director of NIMHANS; Dr B C Bhagavan, Vice-Chancellor of RGUHS; V V S Sreenivas, Director of IRIDM; and Dr Navakantha Bhat, Director of Centre of NeuroScience, IISc, were present. PTI JR KH