Uttarakhand sets up expert panel on disaster management

The 7-member expert committee will be headed by Lt Gen (retd) M C Badhani, former Director General of Border Road Organisation

Faced with widespread criticism over the lackadaisical approach to deal with natural disasters, Uttarakhand today announced the formation of an expert advisory committee in lieu of the disaster management board headed by the chief minister.

The seven-member committee will be headed by Lt Gen (retired) M C Badhani, former director general of the Border Road Organisation. It would advise the state on disaster management. “The committee will comprise of experts in disaster management,” chief minister Vijay Bahuguna said.

A decision to form the new expert committee was taken at a high level meeting presided over by the chief minister.

Bahuguna said though the government had set up a disaster management board which was headed by the chief minister to look into all the aspects of the disaster management, but most of its members were not experts.

“Now onward, we will have a panel of experts to advise the government on disaster management,” he said.

On the evacuation process, the chief minister said it will take another one or two days to evacuate all the stranded people in the hills. “We are also focusing on the 200 villages, which had also been affected due to the floods,” said Bahuguna.

He said the government is dropping food and other relief materials to the affected villages with the help of helicopters and efforts were on to restore all the roads in the region.

The CM said DIG Sanjay Gunjyal has been given the task to oversee the cremations of bodies at Kedarnath and other areas. Medical teams with medicines and water-treatment powders have been sent to various areas in order to check the outbreak of any epidemic.