Maharashtra's Palghar gets village-level disaster management committees

Educating villagers about preparedness for any disaster will go a long way in dealing with critical and untoward situations, assistant collector Sanjita Mahapatra said.

Palghar has become the first district in Maharashtra to have village-level disaster management committees, an official said on Sunday.

A 15-day training programme for villages in coastal Dahanu taluka concluded on Saturday and disaster management committees have been set up in each village in the region, the official said.

Educating villagers about preparedness for any disaster will go a long way in dealing with critical and untoward situations, assistant collector Dahanu Sanjita Mahapatra told PTI.

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Villagers were asked to prepare disaster plans and trained in first aid, rescue operations, she said, adding that Palghar is the first district in the state to roll out a training programme in disaster management for villagers.

Tehsildar Abhijit Deshmukh and district disaster control officer Vivekanand Kadam held training sessions, during which participants were also asked to prepare for natural disasters such as cyclones.

Thirty-five villages in Dahanu were covered in the first phase of the training programme, while the remaining villages in the taluka will be trained in July, Kadam said.

The training programme will be extended to the rest of the district in a phase-wise manner, he said.

Sarpanches, revenue officials, gramsevaks, teachers, anganwadi workers, members of the gram panchayat representatives of NGOs, and Asha workers attended the training programme, the official said.