Gujarat Earthquake Crisis - NIC Lends a Helping Hand

Gujarat Earthquake Crisis - NIC Lends a Helping Hand

The Republic Day of India on 26th January, 2001 began like any other National holiday, with people gearing up to watch the Republic Day Parade and ceremonies. But very soon, the day turned out to be one of the worst nightmares in the history of the Country as the western State of Gujarat got rocked by the worst ever earthquake, measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale. The loss was unprecedented, as thousands died and lakhs of others were rendered injured and homeless. One of the worst affected areas was the District of Bhuj, where not even a single building stood erect after the massive devastation.

Following the crisis, various Government agencies and organizations sprang into immediate action and contributed towards relief and rehabilitation measures. Not to be left behind, NIC personnel in Gujarat and in the Headquarters at Delhi worked relentlessly to provide the much needed communication support to the relief operations.

Here's a glimpse of NIC's contribution towards dealing with the calamity....

Video Conferencing Support

NIC Gujarat State Unit, with the help of the Officials from NIC Headquarters, set up video-conferencing facility from Bhuj and Gandhinagar using portable SCPC VSATs on 29th January, 2001. With the facility in place, it was possible to have a video conference with Bhuj and Gandhinagar from any of the NIC Video-conferencing studios operational in twenty-six cities of India.

NIC's Video-conferencing facility in Bhuj This communication facility helped the Gujarat State Government and the Government of India tremendously by ensuring better co-ordination of the massive relief work being undertaken in the quake-hit areas. All National and International agencies and organizations associated and engaged in relief operations who needed to have a video-conference with control room at Gandhinagar and Bhuj were openly invited to use the facility.

NIC Bhuj working in a tent despite all odds

Natural Disaster Management Control Room

The Natural Disaster Management Division, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India is the nodal agency for monitoring the relief and rescue activities at the National level in the wake of a natural disaster. The NHMIS division of NIC provides valuable informatics support to this Division. In the past, NIC has rendered its services to the NDM division for the cause of Super Cyclone in Orissa and also for the major drought in May, 2000.

On receiving the news about the Gujarat earthquake, the NHMIS Division of NIC wasted no time and immediately reported to NDM Division for duty, without even a formal request. With the help of the NDM Control room officials, a special section on the website (http://ndmindia.nic.in) was promptly developed on 27th January, 2001 which carried detailed information about the extent of damage and the relief operations in place. The site also carried important advice from the Indian Metreological Department (along with important maps and pictures) about the future warnings related to after-shocks of the killer quake, as well as the contact details for various agencies engaged in relief measures.

From 27th of January till 1st March, 2001, the NHMIS Division of NIC provided round-the-clock services to the NDM Control Rooms.

PIB and Web Services Support

Immediately following the earthquake, a special emergency feature was included in the Press Information Bureau's (PIB) website, to cover the same. As PIB happens to be the official nodal agency to disseminate govt information to the print and electronic media, people relied heavily on the PIB website (http://pib.nic.in) to get latest and up-to-date information about the earthquake crisis. The NIC PIB team worked hard to ensure that the website was updated with the news items and press releases as well as other important information. NIC also hosted the official website of the Govt of India on the Gujarat Earthquake crisis on its webserver (http://gujarat-earthquake.nic.in). The website had detailed information about all aspects of the crisis related to relief and rescue and it was duly publicised on the NIC's Home Page for more and more people to know about it. The site was prepared and launched by NIC-PIB Unit at the instance of the Prime Minister's Office.

NIC Gujarat Unit

Finally, the NIC Gujarat State Unit as well as NIC Bhuj District Unit, who were at the helm of the affairs worked overtime to ensure their maximum contribution to the rescue and relief operations. Since most of the buildings in the Bhuj town had collapsed, the NIC Centre set up its equipment in the open space for a few days before they were given a tent to move in. Apart from organizing important video-conferencing sessions, the NIC Bhuj Unit developed important software packages on Death and Injury compensation which proved very useful to the District Authorities. NIC proved once again that at the time of any such national crisis, it is always one step ahead of others in providing its contribution and support to the Nation.