By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, June 22: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) has begun work to prepare plans and programmes to minimise the loss of human lives and property from floods and landslips as the monsoon season has already begun in the country.
Minister for Home Affairs Ram Bahadur Thapa ‘Badal’ during a meeting of the executive committee of Disaster Risk Reduction and Management held in Singha Durbar on Friday said that this year the government had to fight against two disasters -- the coronavirus and the monsoon-induced havoc.
The ministry has to prepare a separate action plan to fight against the monsoon disasters that are caused by heavy rains, landslides and floods in coordination with all stakeholders including the non-governmental bodies and the Red Cross, he said.
Joint Secretary Indu Ghimire said that like in the past, the federal government had to build better coordination with the State governments and local levels to mitigate the possible losses of life during the monsoon season.
She said the meeting on Friday had also passed ‘Monsoon Preparedness and Strategic Plan of Action-2020’.
Under the action plan, the roles of the security bodies to be deployed in rescue and relief operations were defined specifying their tasks.
Based on the South Asian Climate Outlook Forum (SASCOF) report of 2020, the government has predicted an average scale of disaster to in Nepal but, the government has to remain always ready to combat any scale of disaster at any time in any part of the country,” Ghimire said.
The State Disaster Management Executive Committee and District Disaster Management Committees have also submitted their monsoon-related action plan and arrangement targeting the concerned States and local bodies, she said.
Last year, the government had created a reserve of Rs. 1.539 billion under the Central Disaster Management Fund. This year, the government has not made public the fund established for mitigating monsoon menace yet.
“As divisions of security bodies of Nepal Police, Armed Police Force and Nepali Army have currently been deployed for the control and management of coronavirus they need to be split as per their skills and area of knowledge targeting the monsoon season,” Deputy Inspector General and spokesperson of Nepal Police Niraj Bahadur Shahi said.
Over 46,000 of Nepal Police have currently been deployed to fight the coronavirus pandemic across the country, he said.
Last year, 246 people had lost their lives in different natural disasters during the monsoon. Among 17 major natural disasters, floods killed 64 people and landslidess 57.
Between May 21 to June 21 this year, 38 people died in several natural disasters. Of them, 15 were killed by landslides, 14 by thunderbolts, five by windstorms, and four by snakebites.