Disastrous way to heat management

Hyderabad: The TS Disaster Management Authority, headed by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao exists only on paper. While the death toll in the state due to heatwave conditions has already touched the 100 mark, the SDMA is yet to hold a single meeting to put in place measures to tackle the heatwave.

The government has admitted to 66 heatwave deaths till April 6. There has been a strong demand from schools and parents to declare summer vacation to schools due to intense heatwave conditions in the past two weeks. This demand has been referred to the SDMA but the panel is yet to meet and take a decision on it.

Children are made to attend schools from 8.30 am to 12.30 pm every day, thus returning home when the sun is at its peak; a time the temperatures hover around the 440C mark.

“Even grown-ups are unable to bear the heat. We cannot even imagine the plight of pre-primary and primary students. We brought this issue to the notice of the government several times but there has been no response so far,” said S. Sreenivas Reddy, TS Private Schools’ Managements Association president.

The SDMA, constituted in December 2015, has ministers for revenue, home, finance, health, major irrigation, roads and buildings, panchayat raj as its members.

The Chief Secretary is the member-convener and chairperson of the state executive committee, a separate body, and also the chief executive officer of the state authority.

The SDMA should meet as and when required, but at least quarterly, at the end of March, June, September and December of each year, but this was not done.
However, the executive authority had met only recently after the media reported scores of heatwave deaths.

The government had announced setting up of state and district-level disaster management bodies, which also remain only on paper. It should have comprehensive, permanent and separate machinery for effective management of disasters. Above all, the SDMAs have been asked to submit annual eports, which too is hardly followed.