‘We must change attitudes towards crisis management’

    The paper said the BMC establish a Directorate of Civil Defence reporting to the municipal commissioner, which will reach the scene of crisis accompanied by ambulances, para medics and fire brigade. "One of the major responsibilities of the DCM and DCD would be to know the locality where they are situated. It would assure citizens that help help is available immediately when disaster strikes,'' it said.    "We need to take steps to change our attitude towards security,'' said the report. The white paper has recommended that police administration establish a directorate of crisis management (DCM) under the police commissioner, which will be ready to handle any emergency and reach the scene of crisis within the shortest time. The police personnel should be trained in the latest weapons and familiar with modern methods of communications. It also suggested organising a second tier of home guards who would assist where manpower is more important than weaponry. A voluntary service corps comprising young people from the society be set up, which can help in gathering intelligence.     The white paper is based on suggestions by officials involved in handling the aftermath of 9/11 in the US and 7/7 in the UK. The inadequacies pointed out by these experts included emergency preparedness, state-ofthe-art weaponry, coordination of different disaster management agencies and chain of command and control.

Mumbai: A white paper on 'Crisis Management in Mumbai' prepared by the Citizens' Action Group and Bombay First has called for a two-fold plan for changing public attitude towards security and general preparedness of the authorities in the wake of the 26/11 attack.
    "We have the police, a disaster management department in the Mantralaya as well as in the BMC and appropriate chains of command. Still, no one believes that we can effectively handle another emergency,'' said the report.