Himachal Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh on Thursday emphasised on disaster management noting the State falls in seismic zone five, which is most vulnerable to earthquakes and also to natural and man-made disasters.
He said the State Government had prepared Hazard, Vulnerability and Risk Assessment (HVRA) atlas and Himachal was the only Himalayan State which had prepared HVRA Atlas.
The Chief Minister congratulated the Himachal Pradesh State Disaster Management Authority (HPSDMA) and said that the platform would emerge as a very useful forum for exchange of ideas and experience and would be of great help to the States in building system for preventing disasters.
“I am very happy that the State has made good progress in these areas in the last few years,” said he, adding, “We have endeavoured to paradigm shift in disaster management from the relief centric classical approach to more holistic approach”.
Presiding over the first session on State Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction, here, he said there was a need to foster an enabling environment for developing a culture of prevention and to undertake concerted measures to facilitate the integration of disaster management into development planning in various sectors.
The Panchayati Raj Institutions and urban local bodies along with NGOs can supplement the efforts of the Government to mitigate disasters and lessen its impact, he said.