About Section

Disaster means any potential threat due to natural or manmade event that may bring negative impact in our society like property and crop damage, human casualties, cattle loss etc. Disaster mainly occurs as a consequence of any natural hazards like flood, earthquake, landslide, cyclone or tsunami.  Disaster management is a concept adopted by the govt. to handle any kind of adverse situation with an approach of minimizing the loss and destruction and a speedy recovery. In accordance with the activities, the disaster management synergy has been classified into three components like pre-disaster, during disaster and post disaster.

There are some predefined functionaries and responsibilities at each of these stages mentioned below.

Disaster management section is responsible to steer all the activities and maintain a systematic procedure to face any kind of adverse situation with the help of existing strength and capacity.

Disaster in Alipurdur District

Alipurduar has been carved out from Jalpaiguri and declared as a district on 25th June, 2014.  It is a small district situated in the northern part of West Bengal and is constantly under stress due various natural hazards. 

•   Being a riverine district, Alipurduar is vulnerable to flood especially flash flood which causes severe damage to the human habitats, cattles and livelihood in every monsoon. Road damage and water logging is very common phenomena in Alipurduar during rainy season. Agricultural sector and tea garden which are the major livlihood in this district, are getting damage seriously.

•   A significant part of this district is covered by forest and hence it is needless to say that this part is full of wildlife animals like elephant, tiger , wild dog etc. Major part of the human habitats of this particular area use to become victim of those aminals every now and then. Not only that, these animals very often come out towards the blocks and cities in search of food and others things and create panic among city dweller.

•   Alipurduar district is fallen under zone-v according to earthquake zonation and hence there is always a chance of  getting damage due to landslide and earthquake.

•   Changing river course network is an issue here because of the soil characteristics and flow pattern. The soil in this district is coarse loamy type and possess very less water holding capacity. During rainy season, the flow of river increases and soil erosion takes place from the river bed and catchment area. Soil is replaced hapazardly from one place and is dumped at some other place depend upon the flow of water. As a consequence of this, some of the places are run out and other places are surplused by the soil from surounding places. Rivers are bound to change there network.

•   Every year, the district experiences thunderstorm namely Nor’wester  which demolish most of the thached houses and take lives of human being and cattles. Not only that, a good amount of people die due to lightening and thunderstruck.

•   Snakebite is a very common phenomenon in this district. Foothill is the place where water accumulates and make the soil more wet which itself is an ideal place for  various poisonous snake. Most aborigine of the Duars region become victims of snakebite during collection of tea leaves or wood etc.

Our Activities

At the pre-disaster stage, our first target is to write and publish Disaster Management plan well in advance and hand over the same to the sub-division, municipality, all blocks and line departments. Apart from this we provide training to the local people and school children through various awareness camp, mock drill. In addition, we distribute different relief materials to all blocks and municipality.

During disaster, our main focus is to mitigate the situation by deploying various task forces at the place of occurrence, providing basic amenities to the relief camp for distressed people, helping the people by providing medical facilities, sending special water wing personnel as and when required.

At the post-disaster stage, emphasis is given especially on speedy recovery and brings back the situation in normalcy. Beside this, clearing all roads blocked by any obstacle, damage assessment in terms of money, disposing of carcass in proper place etc. are the activities done after any disaster taking place.

Various grants and relief scheme

There exist various govt. schemes/funds which are being provided to the beneficiaries of different cases like house damage or death due to snakebite/thunderstorm/drowning. The existing grants are HB grant, Exgratia, Cash GR, ER grant etc. All these claims are being made by the beneficiary or any close relative next to that person at the Blocks and forwarded to the District. District authority verifies all the claims scrupulously and forward to the state authority. The amount then is released from state and is reached in the same way through proper channel.