CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu Government has signed a memorandum of understanding with the United Nations Development Programme to extend its ongoing Disaster Risk Management project in six districts to seven more coastal districts, thereby covering the entire coastline in the State.

The seven new districts to be covered under the project at a cost of $ 2 million are Pudukottai, Ramanathapuram, Tiruvarur, Thanjavur, Tirunelveli, Villupuram and Tuticorin. It will be started in over 15,000 villages in these districts. Since 2003, awareness programmes are being conducted in Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur, Cuddalore, Nagapattinam, Kanyakumari and the Nilgiris. The period of the project in these six villages is set to expire in September 2007, but it has been extended for another year.

M.F.Farooqui, Commissioner for Revenue administration and Disaster Management and Mitigation, said it was decided to cover all the coastal districts initially because they were demonstrably vulnerable to natural disasters. Other interior districts might also be considered for disaster mitigation programmes.

Training programmes

The focus of the programme would continue to be on enabling local communities to cope with any disaster in the initial stages, he said. In the training programmes conducted, villagers were advised about the various forms of risks and disasters and were oriented on how to be equipped to handle them.

Like in Phase 1, awareness generation programmes, training for government staff and locals, setting up early warning systems, satellite/community radios, conducting mock drills in villages would be part of the package, Chandrima Biswas, UNDP Programme Associate for Disaster Management, said. From the level of the hamlet to the district level, each unit would have to come up with an emergency response plan.

In addition, villages in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Puducherry would be covered as part of an extended programme in the coming months, she said. Early warning systems had been set up or were being set up in Kancheepuram, Nagapattinam, Cuddalore and Kanyakumari, some of the districts worst hit by the tsunami.

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