NEW DELHI, June 27: The Civil Defence Directorate has urged all states to work out plans for dealing with any contigency arising out of a nuclear accident or an attack from its neighbours, notwithstanding India's improved relations with Pakistan and China.

The suggestion emerged during a meeting last week of Civil Defence top brass.``NBC Threat'', which translates into threat of nuclear, chemical and biological warfare, happens to be listed first among the 32 items on the meeting's formal agenda.

Both Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral and Home Minister Indrajit Gupta addressed the Eleventh Conference of directors of Civil Defence, senior Home Guard officials and Home Secretaries from the states. The two-day meeting began on June 19 - incidentally, the day Gujral and Pakistan's Nawaz Sharif tested the newly set-up hotline between them.

It is too early to say whether the Government shares the Civil Defence experts' apparent concern about preparing for a nuclear disaster. But the deliberations on the issue at the Conference at least indicate a revival of sorts of the issue within the Civil Defence set-up.

Upto mid-eighties, all civil defence preparations remained confined against conventional threats: volunteers learnt about dealing with air attacks.

Around 1985, the list of towns which had a Civil Defence set up was revised. A new category, Category 1(A), of towns which could face a nuclear threat was born.

The category was meant mainly to cover towns which would be threatened by accidents at a nuclear power plant. The Home Ministry considered their preparedness to ``a very limited extend'' against a nuclear threat.

Based on the model plan drawn up the Civil Defence Directorate, the state units came up with plans of dealing with such disasters in the specified towns within their boundaries. Initially, only five towns were placed under the Category.

But Civil Defence experts say a comprehensive policy for dealing with nuclear attacks and accidents never evolved. Plans drawn up earlier for the Category 1 (A) towns now needed updating. And more towns have been added to the Category 1(A) list over the years, they add.

There are 13 of them now. Delhi is understood to figure on the list - it is considered close enough to the Narora nuclear power plant in UP. So does the country's commercial capital Mumbai, on account of the Tarapore plant.

The contigency measures adopted for Delhi or Mumbai would be the same whether the Civil Defence set-up prepared for a nuclear accident or an attack. The measures would aim at minimising the impact of fall out from a nuclear disaster through `affordable' methods.

At the recent Conference - held after a gap of eight years - the subject was placed on the agenda at the suggestion of the Directorate's Uttar Pradesh unit, which called for recasting the civil defence programme to meet the NBC threat.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.