Panel to probe govt's disastrous faux pax

Panel to probe govt's disastrous faux pax
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

MUMBAI, JULY 18: A week after the state government almost slumbered through the deluge which brought Mumbai to its knees, a committee has been appointed to investigate the abject failure of the Disaster Management Plan (DMP) (first reported in Express Newsline) meant for just such calamities. The one-member committee, comprising senior bureaucrat Rani Jadhav and appointed by Chief Secretary A L Bongirwar today, has been told to pinpoint the discrepancies between the plan and its implementation.

If the answer to that is not obvious itself, the rest of the committee's brief too makes for interesting reading. It has been asked to find out whether adequate and timely warning was received from the Meteorological Department and how it was interpreted by the receiving departments. It has also been told to ascertain whether the plan specifies specific guidelines to deal with flooded roads and railway tracks and if these guidelines actually kicked in between July 11 to July 14.

Apart from that foregone conclusion, the panel will also determine whether the departments concerned with disaster management had acted as per the guidelines of the DMP. This, despite the chief minister's own confession on television the next day that government agencies had failed on every count.

The panel will also probe whether the government's communcation set-up had been activated during the deluge. Government sources told Newsline that lakhs of rupees had been spent on a state-of-the-art network like V-SAT atan Emergency Operations Centre on the fifth floor of Mantralaya a year ago.

Interestingly, the committee has also been asked to study newspaper reports that were published the day after the torrential rain and to solicit the views of Additional Chief Secretary (Home) M R Patil, BMC Commissioner V Ranganathan, Principal Secretary (Relief and Rehabilitation) Joyce Shankaran -- and members of the press who had aired their views on the issue as well!

The unforgiving downpour between July 11 and 14 had claimed 71 lives as a result of a landslide at Ghatkopar. Life in Mumbai also skid to a complete halt for two days during that time. However, the government and other agencies meant to coordinate the disaster management plan had woken up to the enormity of the situation only at 2 pm on July 11. But by then, it was too late.

Further, the Disaster Management Committee, which is meant to coordinate the emergency plan, had failed to meet even the next day. It was only the scathing criticism from the media that eventually prodded the chief minister to convene a meeting of officers concerned. He had admitted to reporters then that the agencies concerned had failed but refused to fix responsiblity for the same.

Significantly, the government's crisis management group had met twice before the monsoon onslaught. Further, the municipal commissioner too had convened a meeting of civic officers to test the corporation's preparedness to deal with floods in the city.