Training programme on disaster management in urban Odisha held

Bhubaneswar: In order to promote increased community preparedness and to create a cadre of skilled manpower for disaster and pandemic management in urban Odisha, OSDMA organised a three-day capacity building orientation in collaboration with State Urban Development Agency recently, here.

A team of 43 master trainers consisting of State Mission Managers, City Mission Managers and Community Organisers from various Urban Local Bodies took part.

The programme kicked off with the address by key officials including Executive Director, OSDMA Dr Gyana Das, Director, Municipal Administration Sangramjit Nayak, Additional Secretary Pravat Mohapatra, Project Director SUDA Sarada Panda, CGM, OSDMA Sabyasachi Hota deliberated to build clarity and understanding on the need and relevance of the training.

During the three-day training emphasis was mostly on imparting clarity to participants on concepts of disaster management, mapping of stakeholders in disaster management in urban areas, disaster management plan, urban flood and fire management, risk informed urban planning earthquake management, inclusive urban disaster risk reduction urban amenities and sisaster management, development planning and city disaster resilience, prevention and safety – Outbreak/Epidemic/Pandemic etc.

In addition to building clarity on a whole range of topics related to disaster management, resource persons from OSDMA, UNICEF and other agencies interacted and made efforts to help the participants visualise a disaster situation and how to go about addressing it. In addition, participants were taken on an interesting visit to OSDMA control room to get an understanding on how “Early Warning System” works and the information gets disseminated downwards to the field level.

The primary objective of the programme was to create a cadre of professionals who can play a critical role in creating a massive base of awareness at the community level to address various disaster related situation.