Extremely vulnerable to natural calamities due to its geo-tectonic and meteorological characteristics Uttarakhand, which is celebrating completion of 14 years in existence, loses focus on putting in place necessary modern and scientific system to counter these challenges.
It has only put the Himalayan State in a situation from where the activists launched the Statehood movement in late nineties with a hope of meeting the growing aspirations of the people of the mountain State. Though the State Government claims to be prepared to meet any disaster like situation, little seems to be done to ensure compliance with disaster safety norms including equipping the Himalayan State with modern and scientific method of natural disaster counter device.
Keeping in view poor experience of natural calamities in recent years, the successive State Government though reiterated to have state-of-the-art mechanism to counter the natural calamities; they did little to give concrete shape to this safety mechanism. A proposal of installing Doppler Radar that was mooted a few years ago to strengthen the early weather warning system, is still in the paper in the State. Need for having a Doppler Radar equipped disaster management system was felt the most in 2013 when Uttarakhand was reeling under the Himalayan Tsunami.
But there has been little progress on the ground to put in place that kind of precautionary measures as soon as possible against any kind of natural calamities except identification of some piece of land for installing the Doppler Radar, as the officials concerned of the Disaster Minimisaton and Management Center (DMMC), Uttarakhand, claim.
Keeping in view the previous record if the State Government takes about 14 years to find a piece of land to install a Doppler Radar, it would not be exaggerating to say if it takes another a decade or so to procure a Doppler Radar to strengthen its disaster management network, wonder social activists here.
Chief Minister Harish Rawat who started his inning as head of the State Government from the Kedar Valley which was badly ravaged by the natural calamities during monsoon season in 2013, must be trying to reach out to the disaster victims to bring their lives back on track, but ‘ill-preparedness’ on part of the State Government in dealing with the natural calamities that cost his predecessor Vijay Bahuguna his chair, is still a matter of concern.