TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: With the monsoon having set over Goa, the government has directed heads of various departments not to switch off their official mobile phones so as to make it easy to coordinate during possible monsoon-related calamities.
The instruction given by acting Chief Secretary R K Srivastava have gone to heads of departments and nodal officers of the Water Resources Department, Public Works Department, electricity, health services, fire and emergency services, panchayats, Goa Police, river navigation, fisheries and local bodies.
This is “to enable establishing immediate contact with them whenever any cyclone or other monsoon related warnings are to be issued to the general public and specially to those residing in coastal areas,” the order states.
Meanwhile, the north district administration has asked the local authorities to submit timely reports of crop or property damages due to rains. The intention is to ensure relief to the respective beneficiaries without any delay.
The instructions were issued during a second round of meetings on ‘disaster management and pre-monsoon preparedness’. North Goa Collector Nila Mohanan also urged that the disaster management plans of all related departments be updated.
“Any crop and/or property damage should be immediately processed by the concerned mamlatdar. The Agriculture Department and PWD should not delay furnishing the report after inspection of the damages,” she told Herald. “They are given a week’s time to submit fully prepared case files to the district administration for speedy disbursement of relief.”
In the past, there had been delays over the release of grants, which the administration has resolved to rectify from this year onwards.
The Indian Meteorological Department and WRD have been directed to submit daily status reports on the monsoon with the predicted high tide dates so that the concerned department could be alerted in advance.
The District Collectorate has already activated its emergency control room at its headquarters and local control rooms at the taluka-level. To ensure efficiency, the collectorate has appointed assistant engineers and junior engineers as nodal officers for the control rooms at the talukas.
