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The reason, as cited by a senior officer of the department, was the government’s failure in finding suitable persons from the CPM cadres who could qualify in the medical test to be part of the highly-trained team.
“Since no CPM cadres qualified in the medical tests, the teams of divers couldn’t be formed. We could not even avail the grants from the UNICEF and the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) for forming the team,” said the officer.
Civil Defence Department Minister Sreekumar Mukherjee admitted that despite the UNICEF agreeing to supply all the apparatus required for carrying out rescue operations under the Community-based Disaster Risk Reduction (CBDRR) programme, the team could not be formed. “We couldn’t find people from our existing members in the civil defence department who can satisfy the medical criteria for being trained as divers and disaster management officials,” said Mukherjee.
Despite the non-availability of personnel, no advertisements were published by the department either to hire men who could be part of the specialised team.
After the boat capsize incident in Kolaghat in East Midnapore, the department has now begun planning to publish advertisements for forming the disaster management team.
“We have started thinking of inducting people through open advertisements,” said Mukherjee.
“Bengal too has its share of natural and man-made disasters and therefore the state needs a disaster preparedness and mitigation plan. But despite several instructions from the Centre and the NDMA for building proper infrastructure for disaster management, the state authorities have been trying to reap political benefits from this as well,” said a senior official of the state defence department.
After Cyclone Aila created havoc in the state, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee ordered the building of proper infrastructure for disaster management. But till date, the disaster management department is yet to get its own office. None of the 19 districts in the state have a disaster management unit of its own.
“We need an office and equipment. We need around 10 to 15 bighas of land for building a training centre. As of now, we don’t have any disaster management unit in any of the districts. We don’t have machinery needed to combat a natural disaster. However, we are trying to expedite the process of building a proper disaster management unit,” said Mortaza Hossain, Minister for Disaster Management and Relief.
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I understand the stringent regulations needed to have suitably qualified personnel to be trained as rescue diver. Our country is also facing this problem but I have managed to train more than a platoon of good divers from the community of volunteers and full time officers. You only need someone committed to run this program. I can safely say that no certification agency in this world will want to train a team of divers on doing zero visibility diving in a river or lake. As for the health checks, I'm not quite sure what your stringent tests are like until nobody can pass? Any healthy and fit individual with an interest in diving and saving lives will do, for me. The ability to work in a team, learn from others and willingness to put your life on the line to save others are all good attributes of a rescue diver. Good luck.