Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Kiren Rijiju, has called for strengthening institutional systems to strengthen the Disaster Response mechanism amongst the South Asian countries. Inaugurating the first “South Asian Annual Disaster Management Exercise” (SAADMEx) – 2015 here today, Rijiju called upon the eight member nations of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to accord high priority and develop better concept of Disaster Management.
Rijiju said India has taken the lead role in the region by hosting the first SAADMEx, primarily because India is the biggest nation in this region and also because a lot has been done by us in the field of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in the last 16 months. Pointing out that South Asia is the most disaster prone region in the world and that we may face disasters more frequently in the days to come, he said that we have to create awareness in the minds of the people and empower them since they would be the ones who are going to face it. Rijiju said we are taking DRR seriously, but we have much more to do and work out a proper laid down objective for ourselves on how to be better prepared to face disasters.
The SAADMEx will continue till November 26, 2015. On November 24, 2015 Joint Field Training Exercise on Collapsed Structure Search & Rescue (CSSR) will be conducted at NTH Complex, Kamla Nehru Nagar, Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh). Further, on November 25, 2015, Joint Field Training Exercise on Chemical Emergency will be conducted at Greater Noida (U.P.). The four-day long SAADMEx-2015 is being organized jointly by NDMA, NIDM, NDRF and MHA. Delegations and rescuers from each of the eight SAARC nations- Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Srilanka are participating in SAADMEx-2015.
