The Union Home Ministry has ordered mock drills in 259 districts across the country. This nationwide civil defence mock drill will be conducted in several states including Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal on Wednesday, May 7.
Under this, preparations like
blackout, air raid sirens and evacuation procedures will be made. Its purpose
is to test emergency preparedness. According to a News18 report, after the Home
Ministry meeting, a member of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA)
said,
We are reviewing the
preparations. The flaws that need to be removed have been identified.
Another official said, This is the first step that warns citizens in an emergency situation. The Air Force sounds the alert, and every district has to ensure that its air raid warning sirens are working properly.
Divided into three categories
The Home Ministry has also
released the list of places where this mock drilling will take place. Cities
have been divided into three categories. 13 cities are included in Category-1
and 45 cities in Category-3. While the maximum number of 201 cities will be
included in Category-2. That is, a total of 259 cities.
Category-1
Delhi (including Delhi Cantt)
Bulandshahr (Narora) in Uttar
Pradesh
Surat, Vadodara and Kakrapar in
Gujarat
Mumbai, Uran, Tarapur in
Maharashtra
Kota and Rawat Bhata in Rajasthan
Chennai and Kalpakkam in Tamil
Nadu
Talcher in Odisha
Category-2
These cities will be included in
this - Anantnag, Baramulla, Kargil, Poonch, Rajouri, Srinagar, Uri, Nowshera,
Pathankot, Agra, Prayagraj, Gorakhpur, Jhansi, Kanpur, Lucknow, Ghaziabad,
Varanasi, Meerut, Mathura, Dehradun, Greater Kolkata, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam,
Tawang, Hayuling, Tezpur, Digboi, Guwahati, Daman, Gandhinagar and Shimla etc.
Bomdila in Arunachal
Golaghat, Kokrajhar in Assam
Begusarai in Bihar
Bharuch, Kutch and Mehsana in
Gujarat
Jhajjar, Hisar, Gurugram in
Haryana
Pulwama in Kashmir
Godda, Sahebganj in Jharkhand
Aurangabad and Bhusaval in
Maharashtra
Faridpur in Punjab
Baghpat and Muzaffarnagar in UP
Bardhaman, Howrah, Murshidabad in West Bengal
The Centre has asked all the
states to conduct mock drills in these districts. So that new and difficult
threats emerging in the current geo-political scenario can be taken care of.
Security exercises will be conducted in border states like Jammu and Kashmir,
Punjab, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat. A major component of this
exercise will be to test the air attack warning system.
On 26 April, PM Modi held a
meeting with the Defence Minister, NSA Doval and the three service chiefs. In
this, he gave a free hand to the army. After this, the Army Chief met the Prime
Minister on 30 April and the Air Force and Navy Chiefs met on 3 May. The three
services have been asked to prepare to deal with all kinds of situations.
