New Delhi: Apex industry body ASSOCHAM led by its president, Vineet Agarwal and secretary general, Deepak Sood together with representatives...
New Delhi: Apex industry body ASSOCHAM led by its president, Vineet Agarwal and secretary general, Deepak Sood together with representatives from eastern region councils participated in a meeting convened by a high-powered panel comprising Union Ministers, senior government officials and representatives from various central and state agencies to review preparations for Cyclone Yaas.
In a
review meeting to assess the possible impact of the cyclone Yaas and
preparedness of all stakeholders, under the chairmanship of Union Minister of
Railways, Commerce & Industry, Consumer Affairs, and Food & Public
Distribution, Piyush Goyal, ASSOCHAM shared suggestions as part of preventive
measures to tackle potential adversities due to the cyclone.
Noting
that collaboration between the Centre and states is running at an optimum
level, Goyal said, “Both central and state governments are working together
hand-in-hand to ensure very orderly planning, relief and rehabilitation
measures in wake of cyclone Yass.”
He said
that similar effort gave very good results during cyclone Tauktae as positive
feedback and confidence-building measures came out of a similar meeting during
cyclone Tauktae. “Owing to the active participation of all various stakeholders,
I think by and large we were able to handle the ‘very severe’ cyclone Tauktae
well. Those who did not listen to the instructions that were given, there were
some casualties, some unfortunate events for which all of us feel extremely
sad,” he said.
He urged
various stakeholders to ensure completely zero casualty situation and added,
“We must ensure that relief material gets properly channelised and the real
beneficiaries get the same post cyclone also.”
He said
that there is a need to ensure there is minimum outage of power and
communication. “Industries should keep support staff on standby to coordinate
with authorities to ensure rescue and help can reach on time.”
Highlighting
the preparedness of Indian Railways, the Minister said, “Railways has made
elaborate plans and arrangements. We have also kept lot of rescue equipment on
standby like accident relief trains, medical relief vans, electric tower wagons
and well-equipped diesel locomotives have been kept ready at strategic
locations with mobility options to tackle trouble spots. Coaching trains have
been cancelled in a large measure so that nobody is caught in the cyclone.
Food, water, medical aid has also been kept ready at important stations.”
The
top-level meeting also saw presence of Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural
Gas & Steel, Dharmendra Pradhan and Minister of Ports, Shipping and
Waterways, Mansukh Mandaviya along with senior officials from the respective
ministries and agencies including National Disaster Management Authority
(NDMA), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), India Meteorological
Department (IMD), Indian Coast Guard, Indian Navy who shared their respective
views on preparation and response for cyclonic storm Yass that may hit Odisha
and West Bengal coasts on May 26.
Highlighting
the steps taken by his ministries, Pradhan stated that as a precautionary
measure all vital installations and major industrial units of steel and
petroleum ministries along the east coast will be operating on minimum manpower
for next 2-3 days.
He also
assured that there will be no lack of supply of life-saving medical oxygen by
steel industry to hospitals and health facilities to states even in the
aftermath of the cyclone.
Mandaviya,
in his address, emphasised that apart from preparedness, both communication and
coordination among all agencies is equally important.
The
ASSOCHAM President assured the government of working together with all the
concerned agencies to ensure that least disruption is caused by the cyclone
amid Covid-19 pandemic.
“Apart
from the region being hit, the residual impact of cyclone is on a much-much
larger area. Thus, there is a need to monitor and see that there is not much of
an impact on north-Bengal due to cyclone Yass so that there is limited impact
on north-east,” said Mr Agarwal.
He added,
“Besides, east being a very important region for raw material supply for many
industries, if there is any disruption that will have an impact on some of the
process industries, so that is another area to keep a watch on.”
The
ASSOCHAM chief also suggested use of more technology to help get more real-time
and proper information on the cyclone and its path.
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