As the weather took a nasty turn on Friday, at least 10 people were killed and lives of people, especially those living in surrounding areas of Ranchi, thrown out of gear. Worse, as the people are licking wounds inflicted by nature, relief is difficult to come by soon because of the long-drawn process mired in administrative bottlenecks that takes about a month to complete the process of disbursement of relief package among the victims.
According to reports, around 10 people have lost their lives in different parts of the State including one each in Ratu, Mandar besides six cases of injury due to thunderstorm that accompanied the gusty wind and rain on Friday evening. loss to property—livestock and crop — has been reported as the department is yet to start assessment process.
“Today is holiday so the office is closed. Yet the process will start and unless we get a report from respective circle offices we cannot act. A Circle Officer takes stock of the situation, assesses the damage and sends us report for further action. It takes around a month to complete the entire process,” said an official of the District Disaster Management cell at Ranchi.
large scale devastation of crops has been reported at Sonahatu due to brief hailstorm on Friday evening with Edarmhatu and Tetla panchayats among the worst hit areas of the block. To the chagrin of those at the receiving end of nature’s fury, relief material is not easy to obtain as the process requires intense verification by block officials.
However, the disaster management specialists rue lack of dedicated infrastructure in providing timely relief and also see the absence of the infrastructure the hurdle in proper planning of disaster management. As the department of Disaster Management is likely to sanction Rs5 lakh to each district administration towards relief and disaster mitigation, suggestions given to the district administrations are yet to be implemented on ground.
“The plan has been made and preventive measures have been suggested but they have not been taken up by district administrations. Disaster management is a revenue function and revenue staffs are supposed to carry out assessment and send the report automatically. But the problem is that we do not have a dedicated cadre so it doesn’t happen,” said disaster management expert, Colonel SK Shrivastava.
Notably, State department authorities had prepared disaster management plan with the help of students of Indian Institute of Management however the plans and its suggestion were confined to the files and reports. The disaster management plan prepared for different types of natural calamities that hit Jharkhand including thunderstorm and hailstorm that are a regular phenomenon in Ranchi and surrounding areas.