Disaster Management Congress to be held in Mumbai

With a focus of building resilience, the fourth World Congress on Disaster Management (WCDM) would be held in Mumbai early next year.

More than 1,200 to 1,500 delegates from across India and the world are expected to attend the mega event to be held from 29 January-1 February 2019 - the theme of which is 'Building Resilience to Disasters: Bridging Gaps between Promises and Action'.

The WCDM will provide opportunities to critically evaluate the challenges as well as opportunities for the implementation of the development agenda at the ground level, Maharashtra Governor CH Vidyasagar Rao said.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that the increased frequencies and growing intensities of disasters around the world have been causing enormous losses of lives, livelihoods and assets.

Citing the example of Maharashtra, he pointed out that it has faced natural disasters like 1993 Latur earthquake, 2005 deluge in Mumbai, 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai, successive droughts, industrial accidents, oil spills in coasts and so on. "The state government has taken several measures in the past, but still more needs to be done as climate change is posing new challenges," he said.

The WCDM-2019 is being hosted in association with the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and the Disaster Management Initiatives and Convergence Society, Hyderabad (DCIMS).

"Its a very important in the current context and emerging scenarios, climate change, new threats," according to Daulat Desai, Director, Disaster Management, Government of Maharashtra.

The conference has Social Development Goals (SDG) as a central point and the themes include resilience of poor, resilient agriculture and livelihood, resilient health, education and well being, resilient infrastructure, resilient cities and human settlements, resilient communities and resilient businesses.