Editor,
This is with regard to the report published in your daily on 1 June, 2021, headlined ‘8 villages, over 300 people affected by flood, erosion in ICR’.
I would like to state that the Arunachal Pradesh Disaster Management Policy (APDMP) states that the government of Arunachal Pradesh recognizes the need for a proactive, comprehensive and sustained approach to disaster management in order to reduce the detrimental effects of disasters on the overall socioeconomic development of the state. However, so far they have not lived up to that statement. There are three major elements that have been neglected for time immemorial: lack of environmental awareness, lack of responsible engineers, and lack of responsibility of the capital administration yet again.
As a result of this, we can see the impact of the disasters on our state in terms of landslides, drainage blockages, flashfloods, bridge/culvert collapse, road destruction… and the list goes on.
Arunachal is a disaster-prone region due to its climatic variation and seismic zone location in the Himalayan belt. Bearing that in mind, enough precautions need to be taken by the capital administration and the assigned engineers, and more learned and experienced experts should be made part of the core team for strategic planning. Citizens also need to be more aware and responsible in order to raise their concerns.
Recognition and acceptance of these loopholes can help prevent massive impacts of such disasters in the future.
Takam Diring,
Founder,
Green Media Community