By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, JAN 03, 2020: THE Union Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Amit Shah, yesterday dedicated to the Nation the new campus of the National Fire Service College (NFSC) in Nagpur. The Home Minister presented Fire Service Gallantry Medals and awards to meritorious students of the NFSC during the event. Further, he also laid the foundation of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) Academy at Nagpur. Mr Shah also announced Subhash Chandra Bose Award in the field of Disaster Management.

The HM paid tributes to the martyred fire services officers and talked about how Modi government has given importance to institutionalise the capacity building in the field of Fire Services and National Disaster Management by building dedicated institutions like NFSC and NDRF Academy, which have been neglected for the past 70 years.  He expressed hope that though fire services is a State subject, all States would have a better coordination with the Centre to fight fire disasters through the NFSC. The Minister added that the government has allocated over Rs. 200 crores for the modernisation of the NFSC. He talked about the short and long term courses that would be run in this institution.

The Home Minister expressed pride that due to sustained efforts of Modi government since 2016, NDRF has emerged as the leading disaster management force globally and it has achieved all benchmarks under Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. He said the Nation came a long way over the last two decades in its response to disasters and improved its capabilities in minimising losses of human lives and damage to the economy. He cited the Odisha super cyclone in 1999 in which more than 10,000 people had died, in comparison to the recent cyclone ‘Fani’ that claimed 64 lives, which reflected the huge capabilities built in Disaster Response mechanisms. In the other words, in a little over a decade, India has been able to reduce the loss of lives to less than 1% in the comparisons to that of past, he said.