Parel control room lends strong helping hand

An additional civic Disaster Management Control Room (DMCR) housed at the City Institute of Disaster Management (CIDM) in Parel has aided the BMC in managing minor monsoon-related disasters more effectively this year.

The control room at Parel, which is a replica of the original disaster management control room housed at the BMC headquarters at CST was originally meant to act as a backup, in case something went wrong at the DMCR at the headquarters. Even though it is presently working only to support the response given to complaints received by the headquarters, it will take on a parallel role next monsoon, a civic official confirmed.

Even though the DMCR at Parel has only four trained staff members, it has a fully functional technical setup along the lines of the room at the headquarters. Moreover, this control room is also linked to the emergency control rooms in each ward. This DMCR does not have a separate hotline of its own, but receives all complaints that come to the 1916 helpline number at the headquarters.

A civic official from the disaster management department said, “Even though we are not independently taking complaints at Parel, we manage to provide support staff from here. It has helped reduce response time.”

The civic body also plans to set up a hotline number in each ward soon, which will be linked to the Parel DMCR. “This will further decentralise disaster management for faster response,” the civic official added.

Presently, the civic body has set up independent Disaster Control rooms in each of the BMC’s 24 ward offices for local disaster management. Three trained personnel man these control rooms round the clock. However, there is no emergency number at the ward level just yet, for direct citizens’ interaction.