Delhi gears up to raise State Disaster Emergency Relief Force; CM meets NDRF officials

The Delhi government has speed up the process to raise a State Disaster Emergency Relief Force (SDERF) for efficient and quick response to natural and man made calamities, in the wake of recent Satya Niketan building collapse incident that claimed seven lives.

In a meeting of Chief Minister Rekha Gupta with senior National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) officials at the Delhi Secretariat, necessary inputs were gathered for the state-of-the-art SDERF team, the CMO Delhi said on Thursday.

“Following the instructions of Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, the process of forming the State Disaster Emergency Relief Force in Delhi has been initiated,” the CMO said in a post on X.

The government is decisively moving forward in the direction of ensuring that Delhi has its own trained, capable, and rapid response mechanism in the event of any disaster,it said.

The chief minister expressed gratitude to the NDRF team on behalf of Delhi residents, for the promptness and coordination with which it worked during the relief and rescue operation at Satya Niketan, it said.

Officials said the government is planning to strengthen its disaster management apparatus by raising four battalions of the state disaster emergency relief force to tackle natural and man-made calamities, officials said on Monday.

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The need for a disaster response force has been felt for quite some time in view of Delhi’s large population and frequent accidents, as well as the city’s vulnerability to earthquakes due to its location in Seismic Zone-IV.

According to the plans, the government will raise the disaster emergency relief force pooling Delhi Police, paramilitary personnel, and direct recruitment of eligible candidates, including ex-Agniveers.