The
workshop was organized by Integrated Mountain Initiative
(IMI), a platform of diverse stakeholders working on issues pertinent to the
Indian mountains. Darjeeling
Mountain Initiative (DMI) a chapter of the IMI in Darjeeling district, (of which STH is a member) was the
local host for this workshop. This workshop is a curtain raiser to the
Sustainable Mountain Development Summit (SMDS) IV (Arunachal Pradesh) in
October 2015.
Participants
from Arunachal Pradesh, Darjeeling, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura,
Uttarakhand, FAO and UNDP as well as civil society representatives of the region gathered in Kalimpong
to deliberate in the workshop.Dr RS Tolia, President IMI, MP Sikkim Mr. P.D. Rai and MLA, Darjeeling Mr. Trilok Dewan
steered the discussions of the meeting. The panel of experts were- Dr Ajit Tyagi, former Director General of India
Meteorology Department Pune, Dr Malay Mukul, Department of Earth Sciences, IIT
Mumbai, Dr Chandan Ghosh, GeoHazard Dept,
National Institute of Disaster Management, New Delhi and Dr Sunil De, Department of Geography, North-Eastern Hill University,
Shillong.
Some of the key outputs of the discussions of
the workshop were:
1. Rainfall: There are huge information
gaps in rainfall maps in the mountains. Moreover the monsoon prediction is more
plain area based and there is no prediction on impact of monsoons in the
mountains. Early warning systems for disaster in the mountains is necessary
2. Earth Quakes: The Himalayan states are highly
vulnerable to high intensity earthquakes and places like Jammu and Kashmir,
Sikkim and Darjeeling are in high-risk zones. More work on Earthquakes need to
be done for other states of Northeast India.
3. Infrastructure: For rural and urban
infrastructure which is rapidly spreading in the mountains, currently there are
sophisticated and simple non-invasive techniques to test buildings for
earthquake resistance. Additionally construction of roads, which is a key
indicator of development in the mountains, needs to be reviewed thoroughly.
Here too there are less stress causing, relatively low cost and simple methods
that can be adopted with more engineering science.
4. Landslides: Detail maps for
landslides are available for some sites and these need to be prepared across
all scales from a landscape level to site level and even to a households level.
These need to be made available to decision makers in different government
sectors so that planning is disaster sensitive.
5. The bottom line is that mountains
are highly vulnerable to disasters and so a paradigm shift in managing
disasters is necessary from the current relief centric to more preparedness and
risk reduction centric pathways.
6. IMI would coordinate and approach with
the Governments of Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland to take the panel of experts
to these states and interact with Government Department making them aware about
impending disasters in the mountain states.
7. A similar action was identified as
being absolutely necessary for the Darjeeling to make the various sectors of
the government aware about the vulnerability of Darjeeling to disasters.
8. The meeting agreed that coordination
between the different departments of the government is necessary to make
disaster risk reduction in the mountains more effective. As of now this cross-sectoral
approach does not exist in most mountain states.
9. IMI with its local chapter
Darjeeling Mountain Initiative would be an enabler in coordinating with the GTA
to come up with a Darjeeling Hills specific Disaster Risk Reduction Strategies
as per the need identified by the Hon MLA, Darjeeling. Additionally an
assessment of various state-level Disaster Management Plans was also deemed
necessary to address mountain specific needs for disaster risk reduction.
10. The proceedings of the meeting are
further being collated and will feed into a DRR paper to be finalised in the
Sustainable Mountain Development Summit to be held in Itanagar, Arunachal
Pradesh in October 2015.
Praful Rao,
Kalimpong
Dist Darjeeling
