Misplaced Priority of National Disaster Management Authority

The Vice Chairman National Disaster Management Authority, Gen N. C. Vij released the ‘National Disaster Management Guidelines – Management of Drought’ compiled by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), here today. Speaking on the occasion he emphasized that drought is not merely a physical phenomenon characterised by conditions of soil, water and vegetation. It has a very deep implication on the social life and behaviour pattern of rural people.

The Guidelines for the Management of Drought have been formulated after a ‘nine step’ process fully taking on board various Central Ministries and Departments and the States. The process also included wide consultations with scientific and technical institutions, academics, technocrats and humanitarian organizations. The draft guidelines documents were circulated to all the Ministries/Departments at the Centre and the States for their feedback. All workable suggestions have been incorporated. (only six out of nine steps have been described the other three presumably falls under OSA- probably and perhaps not disclosed)

NDMA in its guidelines has identified many current challenges in drought management including;

criteria followed for drought declaration and the time when the drought is declared differs across the states

indicators used and the methodology followed for drought intensity assessment and drought monitoring differ largely from state to state

data sharing for drought assessment and drought declaration

insufficient use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools by various agencies in management of drought

Lack of check dams in the rainfed areas results in inadequate storage-water in times of need or drought

Lack of community participation in drought management activities at the village/tehsil level, and the low levels of involvement of Self Help Groups, NGOs and the corporate sector.
Read more:
NDMA Guidelines on Management of Drought Released

Comments and Suggestions
NDMA should focus on Disasters and not on Drought (which is only a water management problem).
NDMA has a Vision but no Mission
What then should be NDMA's Mission Statement?
NDMA mission should be to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.

What is Disaster?
It strikes anytime, anywhere. It takes many forms- a hurricane, an earthquake, a tsunami, a flood, a fire or a hazardous spill including radioactive contamination, an act of nature or an act of terrorism. It builds over days or weeks, or hits suddenly, without warning. Every year, millions of Indians face disaster (On going floods in India is an example), and its terrifying consequences.

What is Drought?
Drought is only one component of a disaster which is mainly due to lack of rainfall (leads to farmers distress) caused mainly by excessive deforestation and compounded by man's greed to deplete natural resources. This should be addressed mainly by the Environment, Irrigation and Agriculture Ministry. The bureaucrats need to get their act together to Manage Disasters. Just by merely placing a retired General as Vice Chairman is not likely to improve Disaster management!

Army Vice Chief Launches CGDA’s Rail E-Ticketing

Vice Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen PC Bhardwaj launched a pilot project of Rail e-ticketing for the Armed Forces, here today. The project, being implemented by the Controller General of Defence Accounts (CGDA), will initially be available at 20 locations spread across the country. Armed Forces personnel will now have the convenience to book and print tickets through IRCTC website at unit locations. The project will enable automatic generation of all accounting, payment and financial reports.

Speaking on the occasion, General Bhardwaj said that the new system will cut tedious paperwork and introduce seamless processing “in one stroke”. He hoped that the ‘PCDA (Principal Controller of Defence Accounts) Travel System’ will slowly make the Passenger Reservation System (PRS) irrelevant and become a precursor to automation and better management. In her address, the CGDA, Smt Bulbul Ghosh said that the pilot project will gradually be expanded to more than 5,000 Army, Navy and Air Force units across the country. The e-ticketing system will be completed in four phases, - the first phase will cover Rail Travel, Air Travel will be covered in the second phase, Defence civilians will be included in the third phase and TA processing will be completely online in the final phase.

The main features of the e-ticketing facility are availability round-the-clock, user friendly, ease of operation and accounting while taking care of security concerns. In the new system, the units will be enabled to have a virtual PRS of the railways in the units itself, which will be enabled to issue tickets through a centralised portal operated by the CGDA office. For this purpose, the CGDA has entered into an agreement with the IRCTC. With this facility, the system of railway warrants which obliged Armed Forces personnel to go in for manual tickets at the PRS counter and involved a lot of paperwork, will gradually be replaced.

Over six million warrants are issued to the Armed Forces every year, involving worth over 580 crore rupees. PK/HH/RAJ PIB
Army Vice Chief Launches CGDA’s Rail E-Ticketing

Why should MoD Surrender Frequency Spectrum to Anti- Nationalist Scammers?

Spectrum on Sale to Scammers
22 oct 2009 New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation Thursday conducted searches in the offices of the telecom ministry to probe the alleged "criminal conspiracy" between some officials and private companies in giving wireless radio spectrum to telecommunication firms.

"It has been alleged that there had been serious irregularities in the award of Unified Excess Services Licences to private companies," a CBI spokesperson said.

"As per information received, there was a criminal conspiracy between certain officials of Department of Telecommunication (DoT) and private persons/companies and others to award licences to these companies," the spokesperson said.

He said the officials had put a cap on the number of applicants against recommendations of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and "awarded licences to private companies on first come first serve basis on the rates of 2001 without any competitive bidding".

Telecom firms in India offering second-generation (2G) mobile services get some spectrum to start with after they take a telecom licence. Subsequent allocation is done in slabs linked to the firm's subscriber numbers.

The agency registered a case Wednesday against unknown telecom officials and private companies.

Searches were conducted by the CBI in the Wireless Planning Cell (WPC) and in the office of deputy director general (access services), Sanchar Bhawan, Ashoka Road in the capital.

Source: Indo-Asian News Service
CBI probes irregularities in spectrum distribution

Military Frequency Spectrum being Auctioned
Allotting Defence Frequency Spectrum for 2G and 3G Services is likely to adversely affect Armed Forces Mobile Digital Communications in future wars/ skirmishes. WPC is an agency mostly headed by bureaucrats who see a big picture in getting cuts to be credited in Secret Swiss Banks by auctioning off the Frequency Spectrum to Telecom Operators and generally the successful bidders are the culprits who have succeeded surreptitiously in greasing the palms of Bureaucrats.

Armed Forces to accelerate Network Centric Systems

18:48 IST
The Minister of State for Defence Dr. MM Pallam Raju has called upon the armed forces to take advantage of the economic downturn and utilize the idle capacity in the IT industry to expedite their computerization and network centric systems. Presiding over the 4th meeting of the Defence IT Consultative Committee (DITCC) here today he exhorted the industry and academia to come up with fresh ideas and proposals to bring the defence services at the forefront of Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

Expressing satisfaction over the progress in the ICT roadmap of the three Services for the last fiscal, Dr Pallam Raju hoped that the forces will sustain the endeavour started by the DITCC in the coming years.
Pallam Raju preside over 4th meeting of Defence I.T. Consultative Committee

National e-governance status
Critics argue that crores of rupees have already been spent on e-governance projects and the citizen has not gained any major benefit. There is still no consensus about the deployment of open source and proprietary software. Complaints regarding IT implementation are surfacing one by one.
We are over two decades behind most of the Asian Nations (except for nations like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Burma and Thailand) and are likely to slide further because of spokes generated by corrupt bureaucrats in the implementation of e-governance at National Level.