Nitish asks to speed up retrofitting of schools & hospitals

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday called to expedite the retrofitting work in all the schools and hospitals buildings as per the 'rapid visual screening' (RVS) procedure of the Bihar State Disaster Management Authority (BSDMA).

RVS is a procedure to identify if a particular building requires further seismic vulnerability assessment.

"The work of retrofitting should be expedited in all the buildings of hospitals and schools on the basis of rapid visual screening which has been completed by the authority," Kumar said in an official release.

Kumar said this while chairing 12th meeting of BSDMA here in the state capital.

BSDMA vice chairman Vyasji gave a detailed presentation about compliance of the decisions taken at its 10th and 11th meetings.

The authority's proposed budget for 2019-20 and 2020-21 was also discussed.

It also reviewed the work done by different departments and agencies in accordance with the roadmap for Bihar Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-30), the release said.

Emphasising on the need for creating awareness, Kumar said that it would be quite handy to give training to "Jeevika Didis" (women's self help groups members) for creating awareness among the people about disaster related incidents.

The authority should carry out training and capacity augmentation programme on a priority basis, he said while adding that all District Magistrates and other senior officials should be given lessons for defence at the time of natural calamities.

The registration of boatmen must be done besides giving them training, the CM said and added the 'safe swimming programme' should be carried out at all places.

It would give immense help to BSDMA if it is linked with Development Management Institute, Kumar said.

Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, Bijendra Prasad Yadav, Mangal Pandey, Suresh Sharma, Krishnandan Prasad Verma, Neeraj Kumar, Ashok Choudhary and Chief Secretary Deepak Kumar among others attended the meeting.