Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma yes­ter­day launched a vol­un­tary na­tion­al dis­as­ter re­sponse team, com­pris­ing key stake­hold­ers in the busi­ness, health and con­struc­tion sec­tors. Shar­ma, speak­ing with re­porters at Paria Suites, La Ro­maine, af­ter the launch, said while the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM) faced its own chal­lenges, cit­i­zens were com­ing for­ward and of­fer­ing their skills to as­sist in re­lief ef­forts fol­low­ing re­cent floods.

Shar­ma al­so toured sev­er­al flood-hit ar­eas in the Fyz­abad com­mu­ni­ties and of­fered re­lief to res­i­dents. He said in the event of any dis­as­ter, re­spons­es from the vol­un­tary team would be work­ing to­geth­er with the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions would im­me­di­ate­ly be im­ple­ment­ed. "The re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions have to re­spond first and then are co-or­di­nat­ed by the ODMP," he said. "In every re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion, there will be group of vol­un­teers.

"We are do­ing it dif­fer­ent­ly. We are tak­ing the re­sources in, so when it floods the need will be for food, health­care en­gi­neer­ing, a need to res­cue peo­ple and even those who lost their med­ica­tion. We want to make sure those things hap­pen right away." Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, co-or­di­na­tor of the team, said they were in the process of im­ple­ment­ing a "com­plete com­mit­tee." Chan Chadeesingh will be head le­gal team, Dr Col­in Fur­longe the med­ical team, Cur­tis Man­choon will be co-or­di­nat­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Dr Stephen Ram­roop will be re­spon­si­ble for in-house train­ing.

Shar­ma said the team would al­so be look­ing at the qual­i­ty of ma­te­ri­als used in home con­struc­tion. "A lot of homes are mov­ing and our en­gi­neers are telling us that there was not prop­er plan­ning and that is go­ing not to be so any­more," he said. "The law says you have to build in a cer­tain way so we are go­ing to en­sure it is done."