Monsoon: NDRF positions, alerts teams at two dozen sites

With monsoon rains round the corner, the NDRF has positioned its relief and rescue teams in four vulnerable states and also alerted its squads at over a dozen locations across the country to be prepared to tackle possible floods and situation caused by heavy rains.
Learning from past experiences, this is the first time that the central force has been "pre-deployed" and asked to keep an extra vigil in a large number of locations where rains and floods usually wreak havoc during monsoon.
As per a blueprint prepared to tackle the flood fury, the force has pre-deployed one team each in Dehradun, Almora, Rudraprayag and Uttarkashi in Uttarakhand and in Assam's Karimganj, Jharkhand's capital Ranchi and Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh.

In all, over 1,000 NDRF personnel with over 100 boats are on "advance alert mode".
National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams deployed permanently in areas of Assam, Tripura, Mizoram, West Bengal, Sikkim, Odisha, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Delhi, Bihar, Telangana, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have also been asked to be on alert and respond swiftly.
"The teams have been equipped with boats and life saving equipment. They can also be airlifted if required. While we have been undertaking these drills every year, this time it has been ensured that teams are proactively pre-positioned," NDRF Director General O P Singh told PTI.

He said the special force has also got in touch with the state governments so that minimum time is taken to chalk out combat strategies in case flash floods or landslides occur, especially in hill states.

"The teams have been asked to prepare themselves in the special context of floods and rains but they can be sent for any disaster combat or relief task that occurs," Singh said.
The decision to carry out early preparation was taken during an annual conference here in April, hosted by NDRF, which was attended by representatives of Disaster Response Force (SDRF) of 18 states.

NDRF has trained close to 10,000 personnel of various SDRFs to undertanke relief and rescue tasks.