‘EAC well equipped to tackle disasters’

SHILLONG: The two-day HADR seminar, a first of its kind initiative conceived by AOC-in-C, Eastern Air Command, has galvanized all stakeholders in unified Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) efforts.
Air maintenance should be treated as humanitarian assistance by all agencies benefitting from it while ensuring safe and efficient air operations, IAF officials reiterated on the concluding day of the HADR seminar here on Monday.
“EAC has adequate wherewithal to undertake HADR utilizing its eight helicopter units and three transport squadrons who are always on standby,” Air Marshal C. Hari Kumar, AOC-in-C, EAC, said in his address to the delegates.
While disaster mitigation and readiness is being practiced by many states in the region, it is for the first time that all agencies have been brought together on one platform, he added.
The participation and exchange of ideas by senior officials from all NE states including functionaries from other central government organisations, Army and Navy paves the way for synergy in future HADR operations.
Even as EAC continues to enhance its capability and infrastructure in its area of responsibility for air operations, the susceptibility of the region to natural calamities has seen the IAF – as first responders – central to HADR missions increasingly. In the last five years, IAF helicopters operating from EAC airbases evacuated 10,868 persons from several disaster zones or flood-affected areas. In the same period, over 1,200 hours of flying efforts have gone into such operations.
With a review of IAF’s role in recent HADR operations – Rahat, Meghrahat and Maitri – the need to involve IAF in all four steps of disaster management – mitigation, preparation, response and recovery – by all agencies was reiterated during the seminar. In other presentations, HADR in remote locations of the NE region, air maintenance towards the sustenance of armed forces and civilian population were also discussed.
Speaking to media persons about the conference, the AOC-in-C asserted that North East has its own challenges in terms of terrain and weather and lack of infrastructure.
He said that the conference was successful and was attended by all the concerned stakeholders even as he added that similar meetings will be held every year prior to commencement of the monsoon. “In eventualities, respective state governments will involve Indian Air Force in rescue operations and IAF will recover maximum people in case of eventuality but with coordinated efforts,” he said.