Home minister, Imkong Imchen admitted that the topic disaster management was something new and not in the priority list of the state government.
Imchen also took the opportunity to thank God for keeping the Nagas safe from any major natural disaster in spite of the fact that the state was ill-equipped with disaster management.
He said this while addressing the closing function of first batch training of SDRF drawn from Alpha Company of the ‘Daring Ninth’ (9 IRB-NAP), which began on October 10, at Central Training Institute (Home Guards & Civil Defence), Toluvi village, Purana Bazar Dimapur on Tuesday.
Pleased with the demonstration of the trainees, Imchen echoing the suggestion of CTI commandant, said the training period ought to be extended and asked parliamentary secretary home guard and civil defence, fire and emergency services, prisons, Er. Wochumo Kithan and director CD and commandant general HG, Michael Yaden to see if there were any possibilities to extend the training period.
He also congratulated the home guard department and jawans on their achievement and was convinced that the state would be prepared when disaster strikes.
Guest of honour, parliamentary secretary HG and CD, F and ES, Prisons, Er. Wochuman Kithan said it was important that the state must be prepared to respond to any kind of disasters.
He was also encouraged by the enthusiasm of the state in further strengthening the disaster management.
Presenting the training report, commandant, CTI, N. Itoshe Kibami said the training was aimed at capacity building of the trainees to cope with disaster and restore normalcy.
He said 105 trainees attended the training, out of which, 1 havildar expired and three others backed out due to varied reasons.
Altogether 101 trainees managed to complete the training of which one was assistant commandant, one inspector, three SIS, 25 NCOs and 72 constables.
Kibami said the trainees were given theoretical as well as and practical lessons, and revealed that due to unavailability of swimming pool, only one practical class on water rescue could be conducted in a fishery pond, while at the same time, due to non availability of child birth mannequin, no practical class for emergency child birth could be conducted.
Two written exams for medical first responder and collapsed structure search and rescue were also conducted.
Kibami further suggested the training period to be extended to 45 days saying that 30 days training was “too short and not exhaustive”.
Earlier, the trainees performed a demonstration on medical first responder, collapsed structure search and rescue, rope rescue, ladder rescue and rescue from high raise building.