Officials back in classroom

“The first few batches will comprise of personnel who work the most at the time of a disaster in the city. After the few batches,the course will be open to anyone with graduation,” S.S Shinde,deputy municipal commissioner (disaster management) said.

The course will be affiliated to Mumbai University and will be conducted at the BMC’s City Institute of Disaster Management at Parel. The intake capacity will be of 40 students. “We are expecting experts from both India and abroad who will comprise faculty at the institute,” Shinde added.

The course will deal with 35 types of natural and manmade disasters as defined by the central government’s National Disaster Management Academy (NDMA). It will have six papers with specialized subjects like Urban Disaster Management that will deal with disasters specific to cities. “Terror preparedness is one of the key subject that the course will cover,” Mahesh Narvekar,deputy chief officer of BMC’s disaster management cell said.

Other papers that the course will include are disaster prevention,disaster mitigation,building community resilience,standards in aid and emergency medical services,gender perspective in disaster management,use of technology and disaster recovery planning etc.

The course will be practical and theoretical in nature. The centre will have facilities that will give students life-like disaster experiences. “For instance,there will be an earthquake stimulator that will recreate earthquake measuring 1-10 on the Richter scale,” Narvekar added.