SDRF plan: UP officials visit NDRF site to understand process

A high-level team of UP officials today visited a battalion camp of the National Disaster Response Force here, to study and understand the modalities for raising the state's first disaster response force.
Uttar Pradesh, which has numerous regions under threat of natural calamities like earthquake and floods, has been mulling to raise such an equipped and self-sustained unit.
The team led by UP Home Secretary Kamal Saxena visited the 8th battalion camp of the NDRF.
"Senior officials from UP were briefed today by a team of our officers from the operations and other wings and they were given a presentation on how the NDRF was raised and equipped. A live demonstration for the visiting officials was also conducted," NDRF Director General, O P Singh, told PTI.

A senior official involved in the briefing, said, the UP officials were also briefed about the rescue, relief and humanitarian aid operations conducted by the NDRF at various times, including the most challenging ones, like the rains and flood fury in Uttarakhand in 2013, floods in Jammu and Kashmir last year and recently when a deadly quake hit neighbouring Nepal.
A large area of UP falls under seismic zone IV, a high category threat code for possible occurrence of a quake, and about 31 per cent of the state is flood-prone, the official said.
Hence, UP wants to raise its own State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), the official added.

The UP delegation also included Additional Director General (Provincial Armed Constabulary) Subhash Chandra and state Relief Commissioner Leena Johri.