New Delhi: The Vice-President of India Shri Venkaiah Naidu will lay the Foundation Stone of Southern Campus building of the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) Tuesday (May 22, 2018) at Kondapavuluru Village, Gannavaram Mandal, Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh. The Minister of State for Home Affairs, Shri Kiren Rijiju and other Central & State Government officials will attend the ceremony.
The National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) is a premier institute of the Government under Ministry of Home Affairs. The NIDM, in pursuance of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act 2014, has established a Southern Campus in Andhra Pradesh. An interim setup of NIDM Southern Campus is currently operating in the State from Andhra Pradesh Human Resource Development Institute (APHRDI) Campus at Bapatla, Guntur. The State government has allocated 10 acres of land to NIDM for establishment of its permanent Southern Campus at Kondapavuluru Village. The Central Government has approved construction of the South Campus at a total cost of Rs. 36.76 crores.
The NIDM’s Southern Campus would be focusing more on ground level issues, district and local planning, last mile connectivity and mainstreaming disaster management into Sustainable Development Goals through its training and capacity building programmes as relevant to the region.
The NIDM Southern Campus will function to support the overall goal of resilience and capacity building of various stakeholders through its programs. There will be programs designed and developed with special emphasis on the disasters specific to southern States. The South Indian geography plays a vital role in designing the NIDM programs specially Coastal Areas, Rocky terrain of Deccan Plateau and Western Ghats. It would be vital for the NIDM Southern Campus to focus more on the needs of South India hazard profile and develop it as a Centre for Excellence for this region.
India is a signatory to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) adapted by the United Nation’s member states and the Prime Minister’s 10 point agenda on Disaster Risk Management is aligned to its strategy and ground implementation. Capacity Building including training – education, research, knowledge management and mass awareness hold the key to success in achieving the targets of Sendai Framework as understanding disaster risk, enhancing disaster preparedness and “Build Back Better” still remain the most important input in saving lives, property and environment from natural and man-made disasters. NIDM has taken big strides in building the capacity of stakeholders, but the gaps, demand and expectations are huge. Hence, partnership, collaborations and networking across geographies, states, institutions and international agencies and private player are the need of the hour.
A two-day National Workshop on “Forging Partnership: Capacity Building for DRR” also began today at Vijayawada to bring the multiple stake-holders, agencies, donors and governments to deliberate, discuss and share experience and to explore cooperation opportunities. The aim of the workshop is to discuss and deliver a roadmap for making India a disaster resilient country by enhancing and building the capacity of the state institutions by encouraging partnerships between the various stakeholders. International and National experts and senior officials would be participating in addition to National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) officials, State Disaster Management Authority (SDMAs) and State Disaster Management Institutes (SDMIs), NGOs and professionals working in the areas of disaster management.
