"Calamity Management" ... What is that ???
I am an Oriya and stay in Mumbai. Like millions, I also recently experienced the severe fury of the nature over this city. It was 26th July 2005 and I was in my office. Siting inside my swanky modern office I was hardly getting to know that there is a horror story in making by mother nature. In the morning it was a very clear day and as the day passed by news started coming about heavy to very heavy rains. Around noon, it was raining heavily and in very short period of time we heard news about blooded roads and submurged rail tracks.
Local trains as they say are the neural network of Mumbai. This is the one which gets affected first when such calamities occur. You can actually quantify the effect if you know how much of the train network has got affected.
By 3 in the afternoon I could see the cars in my office parking below the building getting flooded and cars started sinking one by one. I took a decision to start walking towards home. Though I had to walk through waist deep water for 45 minuites, I certainly feel satisfied that it was the best decision. People have got stranded for 2 days. Walked for 12-18 hours to reach office.
You must have read all these news about how Mumbai suffered. But the point I am coming to is about handling crisis in India. Orissa has been one of the cursed states which faces some kind of natural calamity every year. If its not flood, its famine and its spared, there comes a cyclone. I have seen and experienced them lot many times in Orissa. People used to make fun of my state as it can't handle such situations. They used to comment on how Orissa could not distribute food to the needy. How politicians did not do their duty.
Here in Mumbai, I did not hear a single voice of politician during the so called flood. There were news that politicians were taking rest from work and hiding from public at their up-class mansions and apartments. The situation after the havoc is non-tolerable. Everywhere its a chaos. Though people trumpet again and again about the "Spirit of Mumbai". I really don't see there is anything like this. Its sheer efforts by local people when the system fails because over the years they have known that the system will never react. So better help yourselves. They have started living with it. Politics and media has named it "Spirit" where as I feel its just being "Desperate" because nothing else works.
If I compare this with what happens in states like Orissa I feel there is a lot of accountability left out there. Had a cyclone like the one hit orissa had hit Mumbai, it would have taken much more than what can be imagined. Look at Assam how it copes with the flood it gets every year. Look at Bihar which gets blood every alternate year.
I am not comparing a state to another. What I am trying to convey is that India as a whole lacks the calamity management system. Its just that it gets exposed everytime nature flips its wings. The ineffectiveness is equivalent in all the places in India irrespective if its a rich or a poor state. What is the need of time is to value human life and work towards a society and system with much more security with a better crisis management capability
Local trains as they say are the neural network of Mumbai. This is the one which gets affected first when such calamities occur. You can actually quantify the effect if you know how much of the train network has got affected.
By 3 in the afternoon I could see the cars in my office parking below the building getting flooded and cars started sinking one by one. I took a decision to start walking towards home. Though I had to walk through waist deep water for 45 minuites, I certainly feel satisfied that it was the best decision. People have got stranded for 2 days. Walked for 12-18 hours to reach office.
You must have read all these news about how Mumbai suffered. But the point I am coming to is about handling crisis in India. Orissa has been one of the cursed states which faces some kind of natural calamity every year. If its not flood, its famine and its spared, there comes a cyclone. I have seen and experienced them lot many times in Orissa. People used to make fun of my state as it can't handle such situations. They used to comment on how Orissa could not distribute food to the needy. How politicians did not do their duty.
Here in Mumbai, I did not hear a single voice of politician during the so called flood. There were news that politicians were taking rest from work and hiding from public at their up-class mansions and apartments. The situation after the havoc is non-tolerable. Everywhere its a chaos. Though people trumpet again and again about the "Spirit of Mumbai". I really don't see there is anything like this. Its sheer efforts by local people when the system fails because over the years they have known that the system will never react. So better help yourselves. They have started living with it. Politics and media has named it "Spirit" where as I feel its just being "Desperate" because nothing else works.
If I compare this with what happens in states like Orissa I feel there is a lot of accountability left out there. Had a cyclone like the one hit orissa had hit Mumbai, it would have taken much more than what can be imagined. Look at Assam how it copes with the flood it gets every year. Look at Bihar which gets blood every alternate year.
I am not comparing a state to another. What I am trying to convey is that India as a whole lacks the calamity management system. Its just that it gets exposed everytime nature flips its wings. The ineffectiveness is equivalent in all the places in India irrespective if its a rich or a poor state. What is the need of time is to value human life and work towards a society and system with much more security with a better crisis management capability
<< Home