GHMC chief reviews monsoon preparedness with officials

Hyderabad, June 11 : GHMC Commissioner Somesh Kumar held a review meeting on monsoon preparedness with all the line departments who render their services in monsoon disaster management.

The Commissioner said that the disaster management teams should ensure that they reach the spot within 20 minutes. He said certain requisitions have come from the departments like Police seeking necessary equipments such as de-watering pumps, spades etc., that are needed for their 21 cranes. The Indian Meteorological Department has asked for two employees to work in their Doppler Radar centre and the Fire Department has requested for provision 40 employees for four months to work on their modern Hazmat vehicles.

Somesh Kumar said that the GHMC has increased the Central Emergency teams from six to 18 while the monsoon teams have been increased from 40 to 60. The material required to handle emergencies have been procured in all the 24 engineering divisions. As many as 165 localities have been identified as inundation points and a special programme has been chalked out in collaboration with the Revenue officials for their rehabilitation.

The GHMC has kept ready 56 life guard swimmers for the ensuing monsoon. The Irrigation Department officials have been asked to constitute teams to check all the lakes and list out the points where breaches can occur.

Additional Commissioner of Police Anjani Kumar said that control rooms have been set up at their Zonal offices. He advised that there should be a generator whenever there is a building collapse sort of incident. He also advised a medical team to provide first-aid at the accident spot.

HMWW&SB Managing Director Syamala Rao said that his department was ready with 21 Emergency Response Teams (ERT) to tackle heavy water loggings. Each team is headed by a DGM and they are also keeping sufficient number of manhole covers ready. The chlorination of water will be intensified during the rainy season, he said.

Hyderabad Metro Rail Chief Engineer Ziauddin said that they have directed L&T people to take up re-carpeting of roads whenever there is a damage.

All the line departments have requested the GHMC Commissioner to open a centralized control room under the GHMC, to which all of them would depute their responsible officers.

Hyderabad Collector Mukesh Kumar Meena, Ranga Reddy Collector Sridhar, Additional CP (Traffic) Jitender and other senior officials from various departments participated in the meeting.  INN