SHUBHANGI SHIFA
Ranchi, Nov 22: The Xavier Institute of Social Science (XISS) and its Rural Management Programme in collaboration with the Climate Resilient Observing System Promotion Council (CROP-C) on Tuesday organised a workshop on ‘Lightning preparedness, Early warning and its dissemination, Mitigation and research-based community-centric solutions’ under the Jharkhand Tribal Lightning Resilience Programme.
Dr Niranjan Sahoo, Associate Professor, XISS set the tone of the consultation-cum-workshop and its importance in the state. The workshop aimed at strengthening the lightning resilience capacity of local communities, especially of tribals of all districts of Jharkhand. The special focus was on the tribal population involved in livelihood activities in the agriculture fields, jungles, near water bodies and open fields. The workshop was attended by around 200 participants comprising Bureaucrats, Professors, Practitioners from the field and Rural Management students of XISS.
Banna Gupta, Minister for Disaster Management and Health, Government of Jharkhand discussed the Tribal Lightning Resilience Programme and said, “Maximum deaths in Jharkhand due to lightning happen in the Tribal belt. It is important to bring awareness to the people so that we can prevent causalities from lightning and utilise it in the form of an energy source. Government initiatives like Aapda Mitra Scheme, NDFR & STRF training have been introduced to bring awareness to the people. Zone selection with the effective utilisation of IT to have radar installation at proper places for depicting the lightening effects will also help.”
A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between XISS and CROP-C for knowledge partnership and action-oriented activities in undertaking Disaster Management Programmes across the state.
Earlier in the event, Dr Joseph Marianus Kujur, Director, XISS in his welcome address said, “Lightning is the biggest killer disaster in Jharkhand with claiming 350 lives in the past year, as national data depicts. Global warming, intense mining-induced pollution, depletion of water bodies, and deforestation are a few of the factors that comprise this issue. Entering in MoU with CROP-C, XISS will focus on strengthening knowledge partnership, research, training, and advocacy, for lightening resilience in Jharkhand.”
Col Sanjay Srivastava, Chairman, CROP-C stated on the importance of this workshop and signing an MoU with XISS and said, “Jharkhand is the most lightening prone area of the country. To avoid lightning we have done a mapping of place, time, month and availability of the location-based system. The organisation aims to decrease the death rate of humans as well as animals. According to IMD data lightning has affected 96 percent of rural areas out of which 90 percent were tribal farmers and the aim is to prevent the death of the farmers. We have brought a Damini App in order to reach the farmers working in the remote part of the state.”
Dr Abhishek Anand, Director, IMD Ranchi, spoke on the lightning and thunderstorm forecasts across the state followed by Dr A Wadood, Director, of Tribal Research Institute, GoJ who discussed the observations of Tribal lives of Jharkhand during lightning incidents and measures to undertake for their safety from lightning.
The role of Media in Lightning Safety was highlighted by Rathin Bhadra, Director, Aquiline Bhungru, Gujarat. While, Rekha Purnima Khalkho and Shilpi, from World Vision India, talked about Lightning Resilience with a focus on housing, livelihood, gender, and children of tribal communities. A demonstration of Lightning Protection Devices for Tribal areas was given by Saravana Krishna D, CIKIT Electricals, Chennai.
An interactive session was also conducted for the audience which was attended by all the heads and faculty of all programmes and students.
