Shimla: Nestled in the lap of fragile Himalaya, rapid growth of development activities like road construction, hydro power projects and other infrastructural development were impacting adversely to the hills of the Himachal Pradesh.
Regular excavation, blasting, tunneling and RCC works were mainly responsible for degradation of environment and so far the administration has failed to check the unscientific haphazard development and losing thousands of crore annually.
Aiming to spread awareness and preparedness for mitigating the landslides risk in the State, the state Revenue department, Centre on Climate Change of the State Council of Science Technology and Environment (SCSTE) in technical collaboration with the Geological Survey of India (GSI) organized a contact programme on Landslide Risk Mitigation here today.
Special Secretary, Revenue and Disaster Management D.D. Sharma deliberated for the need to use state-of-art technologies in assessment, prevention, mitigation, monitoring, warning and preparedness.
He underlined the need to shift from tradition attitude to proactive continuum risk management besides ensuring proper use of scientifically prepared hazard and risk zonation maps and development of sites or projects.
D.D. Sharma stressed the need to bridge gaps in information, data basis, maps, methodologies, techniques and technologies in these fields. The major thrust area should be mainstreaming the disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation in our developmental programme and policies, he further added.
Director, GSI B.M. Gairola said many areas of the State were vulnerable to landslips and other natural disasters and there was urgent need to take effective steps to avoid loss to human lives and property.
Senior Scientific Officer, HP State Centre on Climate Change Dr. S.S Randhawa said the department was regularly organizing training camp for the official’s concerned and general public to make them aware about the possible risks of earthquake, landslips, flash floods, snow avalanches etc.
Mriganka Ghatak and Rahul Vadakkedath from GSI gave their presentation on status of landslides in Himachal Pradesh.
