To ensure enhanced communication with citizens, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is working on developing a mechanism to give timely updates to citizens about disasters. The mechanism is mainly aimed at people who inform the BMC's disaster cell of a disaster, a fire for example.
A proposal to that effect has been prepared and will soon be tabled before the civic standing committee.
The civic body came up with this plan after it was noticed that several citizens would often complain of poor or delayed response from BMC's disaster cell or the fire brigade despite them having informed the former about a disaster. The disaster cell will take it upon itself to keep citizens abreast about the location of fire engines to a disaster site.
"We will register a caller's number and will update him or her about the routes the fire engines are taking, their status and the time it will take for them to reach an accident site," said a senior civic official. He added that this will help mitigate the possibility of panic being created after a disaster. "We will use the geographic information system (GIS) to track fire engines and accident sites, and we will calculate the time it will take for them reach there," said the official.
Shyama Kulkarni, an ALM member from Bandra, who is also associated with an NGO, said that the plan sounds good but the implementation is very important. "BMC talks a lot and always comes up with a big idea. But its implementation is not always encouraging," said Kulkarni. She added that the civic body should also work on reducing fire incidents in the city. However, the civic official confirmed that a tender has already been floated to get the necessary software to establish the system.
