Bihar CM for disaster management training for citizens

Bihar chief minister, Nitish Kumar today stressed the need for imparting disaster management training to every citizen, especially the youths to act at the time of natural calamity.

"There should be special schools where disaster management training programme be undertaken for every citizen, especially youths... It is necessary so that they can be able to effectively guard on their own at the time of becoming sudden victims of natural calamity," Kumar told a function organised on the International Natural Disaster Lessening Day here.

He said there were certain areas which remained affected by floods every year, but the magnitude of the floods increased after an interval of two to three years.

After 2004, around 2.5 crore people were affected by floods in 22 Bihar's districts, but the year 2008 saw the worst-ever devastation after the turbulent Kosi broke its embankment at Kusaha in Nepal and charted a new course, rendering lakhs of people homeless, he said.

Kumar said the state government had, however, coped up with the situation arising out of the Kosi breach and got over 10 lakh people rescued and set up 35 relief camps across the flood-hit belts in Kosi region sheltering four lakh people.

"We made arrangements for food and other necessary things, opened community centres, schools and hospitals for the flood-affected people," he said and claimed that the state government's efforts to tackle the situation after the breach at Kusaha received appreciations from organisations and leaders across the world.

Kumar said his government had decided to give priority to arranging disaster management training programmes at the schools.

"We are also planning to construct quake-resistant community centres in Bihar's flood prone areas for sheltering people at the time of floods," he said.