Updated civil defence manual under planning: Govt

THe board of directors superior general of civic defence, discharge services and place guards (DGFSCDHG) is working to prepare an updated model civil defence manual for civilians that will be enforced during times of war or emergency due to disasters, officials aware of the matter.Identifying the status and requirement for each of the 244 vulnerable civil defence towns for which state specific training with identified challenges for each region will be included in the next few months, the officials added. Based on the new challenges and gaps identified during this year’s two nationwide mock drills, the new guide will introduce changes and also addition or removal of places from the existing list of 244 civil defence areas.The DGFSCDHG, a federal agency under the home ministry, is the nodal body responsible for carrying out drills across the country. During India’s Operation Sindoor, the federal agency had directed and monitored the execution of mock drills across the country.“Civilian preparation requires to be updated and needs more attention at many places. A mass training programme for 500 master training at these vulnerable locations on the different exigencies during war or disaster will be started within the next two months. These master trainers will then train around 90,000 civil defence volunteers on the new challenges and preparations for civilians during a war like situation,” an official aware of the matter said, adding that recruitment of civil defence volunteers has already picked up pace after Op Sindoor.The official added that while there are around half a million (5.95 lakh) civil defence volunteers registered, nearly 80,000 have sent applications through different portals to register after Op Sindoor. For preparing the new manual and organising the new modules of training, the agency is recruiting three senior consultants, who have worked with disaster management agencies in the government sector.The government in a reply to a Parliament question on July 29 had said that key lessons learnt and actions points during the drills included modernisation of Air Raid Warning System, training and capacity building of Civil Defence volunteers, enrolment of volunteers from diverse backgrounds as well as community awareness drivesHT had on July 14 reported how the agency is preparing uniform guidelines for such drills during war time after noting that the mock drills undertaken by states during Op Sindoor were done in a “slapdash manner in the absence of a standard manual.” During Op Sindoor, the first CD exercise was conducted on May 7 across 244 civil defence districts and 150 non CD categorised districts. Air raid early warning circuits with the Indian Air Force were taken and complete blackout measures were undertaken. Apart from civilian areas, the drills were also conducted at nuclear and military stations, oil refineries and other vulnerable places. The second exercise, was conducted on May 31 across 150 districts in states and UT’s adjoining the Indo-Pak border.