Parliamentary panel expresses concern over NDRF’s equipment shortage

New Delhi, April 5 (IANS): The Lok Sabha’s Committee on Estimates has expressed serious concerns over the shortage of equipment in the National Disaster AResponse Force (NDRF) and asked the government to supply the necessary sanctioned equipment without further delay.

In its 13th report submitted to the Lok Sabha on Monday, the Committee said that when the panel examined the inventory of sanctioned equipment with the actual numbers of the essential response equipment, items like brick hammers, chipping hammer bits pointed, chipping hammer bits flat, multi para-monitor, oxygen concentrators, pulse oximeters and nebulisers were found short in number.

BJP MP Girish Bapat-led Committee, in its observations, found that “about 10 items, which are authorised for NDRF, do not form part of the inventory and there was a shortage of the items authorised to NDRF.

The Parliamentary panel has also asked the Union Home Ministry which has the administrative control of the NDRF, to equip the force with all necessary items in a time bound manner without any further delay and a review should be done periodically to check the status of the equipment.

The Lok Sabha panel was surprised to know that ‘forest fires’ were not included in the list of disasters tackled by the NDRF, but it was informed that this matter was under consultation with stakeholders concerned.

Noting that the forest fires are a growing threat globally now as these not only damage the forest resources but also biodiversity, cause climate change, adversely impact tribal livelihoods and lead to severe distress among flora and fauna of forests, the panel recommended that the NDRF should be mandated to to control this also in view of the increase of these incidents in the country.

Describing that the capacity of the Forest Departments to fight huge forest fires is very limited therefore, the Committee observed that it should be tackled by a highly trained force on disasters and necessary training and equipment should be provided to them immediately.

Raised in 2006 as a specialised disaster response force in the country, the NDRF is a 12 battalion strong force, based at various locations across the country while four additional battalions are under the raising process.

Each NDRF battalion has 1,149 personnel who are equipped with disaster response gadgets like pole cutters, electric saws, inflatable boats, essential medicines and others for undertaking relief and rescue operations during a natural or man-made calamity.