The Hindu : Front Page : Integrated Relief Command for Andamans set up

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 01, 2005

Front Page

Front Page

Integrated Relief Command for Andamans set up

By Vinay Kumar

NEW DELHI, DEC. 31. The Centre has set up an Integrated Relief Command (IRC) in the tsunami-hit Andaman and Nicobar Islands to speed up relief and rehabilitation work.

The Lieutenant-Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands will head the high-power IRC and its vice-chairman will be the Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the Islands which already has a Unified Command of the Army, Navy and Air Force in place. "The vice-chairman of the rank of Lt. General of Army, an Army Commander, will also be the operational head of the IRC,'' the Union Home Secretary, Dhirendra Singh, said tonight.

Mr. Singh said the Chief Secretary of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands will be the member-secretary of the IRC, which will have a joint secretary-level officer of the Home Ministry as its member. The creation of the IRC has been approved by the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, and the Group of Ministers headed by the Defence Minister, Pranab Mukherjee. With the Centre's relief efforts focussed on the worst-hit Car Nicobar group of islands, the IRC will pay special attention to relief work in the southern islands and to help the aboriginal tribes there. Though the personnel of the armed forces will play a major role in the IRC, it will have a communication channel directly with the Home Ministry in New Delhi.

The Home Secretary said 14 ships had ringed the Car Nicobar group of islands for providing immediate relief to the affected people with the Government focusing on priority areas such as communication, transport, drinking water, shelter and distribution of food packets. He said the Unified Command was also focussing on relief work.

Tourists evacuated

Mr. Singh said that large transport aircraft such as the IL-76 and the AN-32 were flying relief material from the mainland to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and providing inter-island transport facilities. To a question, he said that all tourists had been evacuated from the islands and the stress was now on transporting relief material to the affected people through all possible means. "Cost is no consideration for this work,'' he added.

Mr. Singh said all 38 inhabited islands had been "visited'' by relief and rescue teams but there were still many far-flung and inaccessible villages where contact was yet to be established with the local population.

The Centre has also decided to appoint a senior IAS officer of the Andhra Pradesh cadre as Special Officer to "think and evolve'' a rehabilitation plan, both on medium and long-term basis for restoring infrastructure in all the tsunami-affected coastal States. The Special Officer would also look at past experiences of natural disasters such as the earthquakes in Latur and Gujarat and suggest ways and means to the Home Ministry to build suitable infrastructure in the affected States. The Special Officer would work in the National Institute of Disaster Management taking the help of its consultancy services.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page

News Update

Stories in this Section