Measures to control Hazards :

Prevention is an important aspect of disaster management. Prevention may be described as measures designed to prevent natural phenomenon from causing or resulting in disaster or other related emergency situations.Clearly, not all emergencies can be prevented, so the concept is taken to have a much broader meaning. Prevention actions concern the formulation of long-range policies and programs to prevent or eliminate the occurrence of disasters.

Early Warning and Dissemination systems :

 DMMC ( Disaster Mitigation & Management Centre ) will be the main focal point responsible for coordinating early warning, along with the relevant technical agencies and Technical Committees, its dissemination and for ensuring last mile dissemination of same. The State Emergency Operation Centre of the DMMC will be in constant coordination with all technical agencies responsible for natural and man-made hazards, and in instances of any imminent disaster, it will take action to inform the responsible officers for onward communication to the sub-levels and communities.

State Emergency Operation Centre (Department of Disaster Management) :

In the case of a natural calamity/ Incident the Preliminary Information received from the Police Wireless Set and Immediately after Initial Action Taken Report is prepared based on wireless/ telecommunication opinion. It is sent to all the concerned officers including Hon'ble Chief Minister, Secretaries, Information Directorate, Commissioners, Departmental Nodal Officers, MHA, NIDM, GSI, and Media also.

Alert and Information System (SMS Software) :

It is a very effective alert information system during the incident. This system plays a very vital role in dissemination of information with respect to incident in detail. Time to time dissemination of detailed information on the incidence through SMS. All messages are communicated to print media and electronic media.

Preventive Measures :

Awareness Generation : It is a well established fact that one of the least expensive yet highly effective preparedness measures is the mass awareness generation. It is the key initiative for disaster preparedness in the generation of mass awareness on disaster. Communities must be fully aware of its vulnerability to natural hazards as also means to reduce their impacts, before it can insist upon and support actions to mitigate the impacts and take individual steps necessary to mitigate the impacts and take the individual steps

Mitigation Strategy : Pre-disaster planning consists of activities such as disaster mitigation and disaster preparedness. Disaster mitigation focuses on the hazard that causes the disaster and tries to reduce its effects. Mitigation is being recognized as an integral component of sustainable development, so that communities are likely to recover more quickly from the Impacts of the disasters.

Types of mitigation :

Structural Mitigation : Structural mitigation includes physical measures and standards such as building codes, materials specifications, and performance standards for the construction of new buildings; the retrofitting of existing structures to make them more hazard-resistant.

• Structural mitigation is more complex than the non-structural mitigation, and usually has a higher associated cost. Mitigation plan for the State shall include all the activities that prevent a hazard or lessen the damaging affects of unavoidable hazards.
•  Till date there is a lack of efficient legal framework to implement building codes & bye-laws. The state must enforce the implementation of building bye-laws in all new constructions through local agencies and municipal authorities. The structural mitigation strategy must facilitate adoption of building codes for new constructions in various areas.

Non-structural Mitigation :  Risk Assessment and Vulnerability Analysis : The Vulnerability of an area is determined by the capacity of its social, physical, environmental and economic structures to withstand and respond to hazards.

•  The nature of the vulnerability and its assessment vary according to the socio–economic conditions of the people involved, infrastructures, and other physical assests and other economic activities.
• The concept of Vulnerability implies a measure of risk combined with the level of social and economic ability to cope with the resulting event in order to resist major disruption or loss.
• The Risk assessment means the quantitative evaluation of the likelihood of undesired events and the likelihood of damage being caused by them. Risk assessment should include factors like frequency, intensity, affected area & time to return for normalcy. The Risk Assessment and vulnerability analysis activity have to be carried out in the state for identification of areas of prime concern.

Reacting to a disaster is not enough; preventive and recovery measures and minimizing of emergency response time are equally important. Further, it is has been recognized that for optimal use of the scarce resources, disaster management should be incorporated in development planning.