Delhi will have its own dedicated disaster response agency as the cabinet has approved a proposal to set up the State Disaster Response Force, officials said on Friday.
The proposal to create the force will be sent to Lt Governor Taranjit Singh Sandhu. The SDRF will be headed by an IG rank officer and will comprise 1,050 personnel, officials said. “There will be 18 teams — one each for the 13 revenue districts and the remaining five in reserve.
Initially, the force will comprise personnel who will be taken on deputation from the CAPFs,” said an official. Another official said they are targeting to have at least a couple of teams in place by the beginning of January. A formal notification will then be issued, officials said.
The proposal to create the SDRF was passed during a Cabinet meeting chaired by chief minister Rekha Gupta on Tuesday.
To be sure, the proposal to create an SDRF is not new. It was during the AAP government’s tenure that the Revenue Department had drawn up a proposal to raise the SDRF, citing Uttarakhand’s SDRF, which was involved in the Silkyara Tunnel rescue. However, there was no movement on it.
