Mysuru: The Safety Department of Mysore Division and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) conducted a joint mock drill for its staff on Friday, July 31. The purpose of the drill was to sharpen the skills of the staff in rescue & relief operations during accidents involving passenger-carrying trains.
The Railways, with its vast network has the additional responsibility of handling relief and rescue operations besides clearing & restoring traffic. The Citizen’s Charter also spells out this commitment. Higher density of traffic on Indian Railways over the years has called for paradigm shift from the existing level of preparedness at a higher level of an effective management of disasters like accidents, etc.
Speaking to media on the occasion, Shri Rajkumar Lal, Divisional Railway Manager, SW Railway, Mysore, said that the Railways was evolving as an integrated disaster management plan to facilitate cohesive approach to comprehensively address all aspects of disaster management to boost public confidence.
He further stated that Railways was augmenting its infrastructure of relief equipment, facilities in hospitals & in trains to the envisaged scale/ & their maintenance to be in a state of operational readiness. “Faster response, better facilities & equipment, expanding resources to meet requirements in major accidents, training & preparedness continue to be focus areas for the division”, he added.
He also stated that mock drills of this nature were very essential to get a sense of the preparedness of all the related departments and especially to check the working condition of critical equipment deployed during the operations.
In the mock drill the NDRF team displayed amazing skills with the state-of-art equipment in rescuing the people trapped inside the coaches who were in disarray. The mock drill was supervised by the branch officers from Mechanical, Electrical, Signal & Telecommunication, Civil Engineering & Medical departments.
South Western Railway Chief Safety Officer Vikrant Kalra, SW Railway, Mysore Addl.Divisional Railway Manager Shri P. Ram, SW Railway, Mysore Division Sr.Divisional Safety Officer Shri. Venkateshwara Rao, SW Railway Hospital Chief Medical superintendent Dr.G.S.Ramachandra and other senior officials from Railways & NDRF were present on the occasion.
