Disaster preparedness significant for national survival; youth’s training necessary: Ali Muhammad Khan    

ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan Friday said disaster preparedness is significant for national survival and prosperity whereas it is high time to train and prepare our youth to be capable enough to help support local communities in natural calamities and manmade disasters.

“I will propose the Prime Minister Imran Khan to revive National Cadet Corps (NCC) and Girl Guide trainings to prepare our future generations to become proactive and effective members of the society in disasters to save their indigenous population in emergency and disaster like situations,” he said.

The minister expressed these on the launching ceremony of National Disaster Response Plan 2019 (NDRP-2019) by National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) as chief guest on the ceremony. He said that the incumbent government was well aware of climate change impacts and consequent natural disasters risk in the country. It had been time now to invest in the projects ensuring disaster resilient Pakistan as it had faced unprecedented devastation made by 2005 earthquake and 2010 super floods.

“We have to learn from our history as the earthquake of 2005 killed 73,000 people, displaced over 3.5 million population, whereas the 2010 floods badly damaged infrastructure, caused economical losses and above all killed 1985 people. Our leadership is on to it, we have will and full government support at the back of NDMA and other stakeholders for disaster resilient Pakistan. We have a Prime Minister today who himself is an environmentalist,” Ali Muhammad Khan said.

“NDMA had performed well despite its meager available resources and collaboration provincial disaster management authorities (PDMAs) and District Disaster Management Authority (DDMAs) though they are not equipped and vibrant to the desired level,” he added. He lauded NDMA’s efforts and said it was heading in the right direction to provide a safer country to its citizen.

“NDRP-2019 is a very good step towards building disaster resilience against natural and human induced disasters,” he added.  Chairman NDMA, Lt Gen Omar Mahmood Hayat said that since inception Pakistan had been subject to numerous natural and manmade disasters whereas all disaster management bodies had developed and enhance their capacities with the growing challenges and nature of disasters.

“NDMA has improved and technically enhanced early warning system to predict disasters. NDMA has revised NDRP-2019 after cross-sectoral discussions with all relevant stakeholders and partners where it will welcome valuable feedback to make further improvements as disaster response plans demand up gradation with the developing disaster scenarios and occurrence. NDMA has developed the capacity to response any disaster at short notice with minimum losses to human life,” he added.

“NDRP-2019 lays down coordination mechanism for involving UN bodies, public sector, civil society and media in disaster response,” the chairman noted.

Member Operations NDMA Brig Mukhtar Ahmed briefed the participants about NRDP-2019 in his presentation. He informed that the revised NDRP-2019 was an updated version of NDRP-2010 and had been formulated to cope with the challenges evolved over the years in environment and disaster management mechanism of the country. NDRP-2019 had been prepared in collaboration with Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC) under Pakistan Resilience Partnership, he added.