Baltal: To assess the overall preparedness and response measures taken at critical sites to deal with any untoward incident during the upcoming Amarnath yatra, a mock drill was conducted by the Department of Disaster Management in collaboration with the National Disaster Management Authority and District Disaster Management Authorities and all the concerned government and private agencies from Sonamarg to Amarnath Cave at Baltal base camp.
Secretary to Government, DMRRR, Nazim Zai Khan, Deputy Commissioner Ganderbal Shyambir Singh, and ADC Ganderbal Farooq Ahmad Baba participated in the mock drill at Baltal.
Major General V K Naik and Brigadier B K Thakar from NDMA conducted the mock exercise on the Baltal, Sonamarg route covering both the natural as well as man-made disasters.
NDMA experts trained the participants on key aspects of disaster management like the formation of Incident Response Teams, coordination among various participating agencies, evacuation, medical preparedness, and trauma counselling.
After the drills, post-exercise analyses were carried out by the NDMA experts in which they discussed the entire operation and underlined areas that needed improvement.
Among others, the mock drill was attended by officers and officials of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), Rashtriya Rifles of the Army, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Police, Health Department, Civil Defence, Transport, Fire and Emergency Services, and other emergency services.
A similar exercise was conducted at the Pahalgam base camp that was attended by Special Secretary DMRRR Suraj Rukwal and Deputy Commissioner Anantnag Piyush Singhla.