Adilabad district equipped with own DDRF
To save the people in times of natural calamities
The Adilabad region is now equipped with a District Disaster Response Force (DDRF) of its own, primarily to face situations of floods and heavy rains. Adilabad SP, Gause Alam, has taken this special initiative, in view of his past experience in flood-hit areas.
DDRF was created in the Nirmal district and the Ramagundam Police Commissionerate and it will be stationed in the district headquarters.
Adilabad and Sirpur (T) assembly constituencies face floods during the monsoon. It comprises a team of 20 young police members under the leadership of a reserved sub-inspector. This team was trained for disaster management at the Enforcement Vigilance and Disaster Management Centre in Hyderabad.
The district police have a team with experts and equipment to save the lives of the people. During heavy rains and floods, River Penganga overflows with floodwaters coming from upstream areas in Maharashtra.
During the monsoons, the same situation arises with River Pranahitha, River Peddavagu in Komaram Bheem Asifabad district and River Godavari in Nirmal and Mancherial districts being in spate.
In the last two years, Nirmal district received incessant rains and floods and the main residential colonies were inundated in the floodwaters.
Earlier, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) used to come to the districts when there were natural calamities. The district administration used to depend more on the NDRF and sometimes the force reached flood-affected interior areas too.
However, the state government has created a district-level disaster response force so as to avoid total dependence on the NDRF. The DDRF may reach the place immediately and attend the emergency situations, in the interregnum before the arrival of the NDRF teams, if need be.
The state government has supplied the material support required for the force.
The DDRF team is tasked to respond to natural calamities, save lives and see that there is no property loss due to floods and in emergencies like fire incidents, houses collapse etc and step into action also when there is a fall of big trees on the roads blocking the traffic and cyclones, etc.
Adilabad SP, Gause Alam, who worked earlier in Mulugu, had experienced situations of devastation following the heavy rains in Mulugu and Medaram area. Flood water had entered many villages and caused huge property loss there last year.
With this experience, Gause Alam took the initiative to have a district disaster response force (DDRF) for Adilabad.
Gause Alam said the DDRF stationed in the district headquarters is equipped with rescue boats, motor machines, medical structures, life jackets, lifebuoys and wood cutter machines.