Chasing calamity

Chasing calamity
Sukhmani Singh

I discover a government source-book on disaster management which informs me that Punjab's nodal agency for this task is the high-sounding Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Public Administration. After much hunting, I track it down to its new location. From a cramped office in Chandigarh's commercial hub, it has moved nearby to an enormous spider-like building with black glass, with assorted legs crawling over many acres. Who said there was a cash crunch in Punjab?

The receptionist guides me to the Disaster Management Cell with great alacrity. The cell looks disaster struck itself -- sans telephone or any other means of communication, with heaps of musty files gathering dust in cartons and cupboards.

Its august head and sole member -- a worthy academician boasting a masters in statistics and a doctorate in public administration, not to mention a six-month course in disaster management from the Indira Gandhi National Open University -- is taken aback by my arrival. Shaking his bespectacled, grey head, he asks me to return tomorrow. I stubbornly refuse, so he agrees to oblige me. No, the state has no action plan for disaster management. For the past three years, the good man has ostensibly been compiling data and conducting research on the subject with the help of a stenographer. He admits that the cell ``is not very active''.

Perhaps he has some data at least? Feeling like Amitabh Bachchan onòf40ó KBC, I ask him to name the most disaster prone districts in Punjab. He has no recourse to helplines. After much rummaging around, he fails to come up with a definite answer. He mutters vaguely that the ``most serious floods in the state occured in 1988 and 1993'' and pulls out fusty registers containing lists of compensation given, etc. But what about earthquakes? He sneers at my stupidity. ``Earthquakes? Huh. The last one occurred in Kangra some 40-50 years ago, there's no danger in Punjab, so we don't stress on that.'' I persist, ``Which are the districts which are vulnerable?'' He replies: ``The ones near the Himalayas -- Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur, Ropar and Nawanshahr.''

What exactly does his cell do? It organises five-day training courses in disaster management for gazetted officers and the home guards. These worthies are taken to the Sukhna Lake and taught how to handle motorboats and build rafts with bamboos and drums. ``You see, the greatest danger in Punjab is floods, not earthquakes,'' he informs me with textbook studiousness.

Like a stuck record I return to my original, but boringly repetitive, query: ``What about earthquakes?'' He snaps back tiredly: ``We just give two talks on earthquakes -- we tell them how they occur, how they can destroy the physical installations of the government, and cause loss of lives.'' That cut and dried?

So what has the good man achieved in three years? He answers with a great deal of pride that he has attended training programmes in the Indian Institute of Planning and Administration in Delhi besides countless conferences and workshops. With puffed up chest, he smirks, ``I have represented Punjab in discussions on the subject.''

After parting with so much classified information, my friend runs scared. He mutters that perhaps he should consult his director about whether he can release it to the press or not. ``Just wait here for five minutes, I'll be back.'' I twiddle my thumbs for half an hour, but the man does not appear. Perhaps some disaster has befallen him. I do the vanishing trick myself.