BEL makes vehicle for NDRF to respond to biological, chemical disasters

State-owned Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) has designed and manufactured a vehicle for the National Disaster Response Force to respond to incidents involving hazardous chemicals, biological or radiological substances, a release said.

The first CBRN (Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear) HAZMAT (Hazardous Material) vehicle for NDRF was flagged off at BEL's Pune unit on Wednesday, it said.

This vehicle is yet another achievement in BEL's Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat initiatives, said the release.

The vehicle is used to detect, monitor and respond to hazardous chemical, biological or radiological incidents, where it is vital to plug or seal the source of contamination to contain any further release of hazardous substances, the release said.

The vehicle has a spacious operator compartment integrated with a wide range of user-friendly Chemical-Biological-Radiation-Nuclear detection and identification sensors, it said.

It has a hand-held thermal imager, providing night vision. The vehicle has an alternate breathing support facility in the form of demand valve face masks during contingencies, read the release.

The vehicle provides a platform to take the responders up to the source of the leak and facilitates the responders in case of a CBRN disaster, where moving on foot would not be feasible, as per the release.

It is integrated with NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) Filtration System for keeping the vehicle safe in an NBC contaminated area and provides fresh air for 6 personnel, the release said.

The vehicle is also integrated with Hazard Prediction Software that takes inputs from the observer about CBRN threat, environmental data from the weather sensor and positioning data from the on-board GPS system and provides a realistic picture of the whole scenario to the command and control centre, the release said.

The systems on board capture the responder's health data live to plan rescue and replacement. The vehicle also contains decontamination chambers for decontaminating responders re-entering the vehicle after operations.