Bhubaneswar, May 6: The Odisha Home Department on Tuesday held a high-level preparatory meeting for the upcoming statewide civil defence mock drills that will be held to train citizens on precautions to be taken during an enemy attack.

The meeting took place at Lok Seva Bhawan here in the presence of Additional Chief Secretary, Home Department, Satyabrata Sahu and Director General of Odisha Fire Services department, Sudhansu Sarangi.

Senior administrative officers from various departments, including police and fire services attended the meeting to chalk out a comprehensive action plan for the drill.

Discussions focussed on strengthening inter-agency coordination, response time, resource deployment, and public communication strategies during emergencies.

The mock drills to be conducted in 12 districts of the state start from Wednesday and will be held for a week to prepare citizens for any kind of air attack and contingencies.

District administrations will use their mechanisms regarding public awareness on this.

“We will conduct mock drills in 12 districts of Odisha, which will include Angul, Khordha, Balasore, Bhadrak, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Ganjam, Dhenkanal, Puri, Koraput and Sundargarh.

“These week-long mock drills will start from Wednesday. We will hold mock drills on Wednesday in a few urban areas. The personnel of the Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA) will help in conducting the drills in the coastal areas,” said Sarangi.

He also added that the purpose of the mock drills was to alert the public by blowing air raid warning sirens and to prepare them for any eventuality, especially if the enemy conducts an aerial attack.

“The siren will be a long one and continue for about 5 minutes,” he stated and added that the drills were aimed at educating people about the precautions they need to take in case of any attack.

He urged people to take shelter in a concrete building once the sirens are blown.

The district administrations have been asked to select designated shelters where the residents of slums can be asked to shift to.

Once the attack is over, trained civil defence volunteers will again sound another siren to inform the public about the end of the attack, noted Sarangi.

He also stated that the preparedness to deal with the aftermath, like taking care of the injured, putting out fires etc, will be assessed through the week-long process.

The district authorities have been asked to mobilise NCC, NSS, Apada Mitra, local officials and volunteer organisations, apart from the Civil Defence volunteers, to participate in the week-long mock drills.

Around 4,000 Apada Mitras of OSDMA will participate in the mock drills in their respective areas.

The Disaster Emergency Response Centres at the state and district level will be operationalised from Wednesday.

The OSDMA will be in touch with the shelter homes and district Emergency Response Centres.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, "The conduct of the exercise is planned up to the village level. This exercise aims to assess and enhance the readiness of Civil Defence mechanisms across all States and Union Territories."

(IANS)

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