Aapada Mitra Programme

• 29 Sep 2021

Why in News

Recently, the government has announced plans to have Disaster Management Volunteers (Aapda Mitras) in 350 districts of the country also released documents for Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)

• CAP is a simple but general format for exchanging all-hazard emergency alerts and public warnings over all kinds of networks.

Key Points

• About:
  
  • It is a Central Sector Scheme that was launched in May 2016. NDMA (National Disaster Management Authority) is the implementing agency.
  • It is a programme to identify suitable individuals in disaster-prone regions who can be trained to be first responders in times of disasters.
• Aim:
  
  • To provide the community volunteers with the skills that they would need to respond to their community’s immediate needs in the aftermath of a disaster thereby enabling them to undertake basic relief and rescue tasks during emergency situations such as floods, flash-floods and urban flooding.
• Objectives:
  
  • Training institutions to be empanelled by respective States/UTs at the State/UT level.
  • To train community volunteers in life saving skills of disaster response (flood relief and rescue), coordination, assistance, and provide personal protective equipment and emergency responder kits;
  • To create a Community Emergency Stockpile/Reserve at the district/block level containing essential light search and rescue equipment, medical first aid kits, etc;
  • To disseminate training and education tools developed under the project to more flood prone districts in subsequent phases of the scheme.
• Other Disaster Related Initiatives:
  
  • Indian:
    
    • National Disaster Response Fund.
    • Disaster Management Act, 2005.
    • Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI).
  • Global:
    
    • Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030
    • United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).

National Disaster Management Authority

• NDMA is the apex statutory body for disaster management in India. It is headed by the Prime Minister of India.
• It was formally constituted on 27^th September 2006, in accordance with the Disaster Management Act, 2005.
• Its primary purpose is to coordinate response to natural or man-made disasters and for capacity-building in disaster resiliency and crisis response.
• It envisages to build a safer and disaster resilient India by a holistic, proactive, technology driven and sustainable development strategy that involves all stakeholders and fosters a culture of prevention, preparedness and mitigation.

Source: IE