Background

The West Bengal is highly prone to natural disasters; floods, droughts, cyclones and earthquakes are a recurrent phenomenon in Bengal. Susceptibility to disasters is compounded by frequent occurrences of manmade disasters such as fire, epidemics etc. The changing topography due to enviourmental degradation has also increased the vulnerability of the country.

A major segment of West bengal populations live in rural areas. The abject poverty, agriculturally and industrially underdeveloped region encompass the rural masses that face the various calamities all through the year. The negligible purchasing power of the people fails to fetch the basic needs of livelihood unlike the urban masses. In spite of providing all the facilities like road, bridge, school etc. the real development will be a distant dream unless and until the people themselves shoulder the management responsibility. Each and every disaster like flood, cyclone, drought, sunstroke etc. mostly affect the rural mass and they become the ultimate looser. So it’s very essential to form various disaster management teams at all levels to coordinate during different hazards starting from village to state level and discusses the management and mitigation strategies and processes in details. Last but not the least, a training curriculum mentioning, in detail, about the post training responsibilities of each working committee or disaster management teams at the time of disaster should be prepared.

Download the Disaster management Manual Here .