KENDRIYA VIDYALAY

NO.1 AFS PUNE

Submitted by-
Nivedita singh

SOCIAL SCIENCE PROJECT WORK

CONTENTS:
 Sharing responsibilities during a disaster
 Alternate communication systems
 SHARING RESPONSIBILITIES IN TIMES OF DISASTER

Plan Ahead

 If you know a natural disaster is coming, take all necessary

precautions to attempt to lessen the amount of damage and debris. This
can include boarding up windows, tying down objects or bringing
essential items down to the basement.

Stay Focused

 Remember that the safety of people must come first. Think about
neighbors who may need some extra help, such as those with disabilities
or the elderly.

Stay Safe

 Depending upon the disaster, do whatever it takes to stay safe. This

can mean moving to higher ground, staying indoors at home or in a
shelter, evacuating if advised to do so or simply getting underneath
something sturdy.
Gather Essentials

 Have a portable, battery-powered radio to find out what is going on

and a first aid kit or disaster survival kit. Be sure to have your insurance
information and other important documents together and with you.

Government Aid

 When it is safe, the local government is responsible for sending out

emergency services, along with volunteer organizations. The state
government may send the National Guard and other agencies. Help may
follow from the federal government (FEMA) if a disaster is deemed
major.
The following ministry is assigned the responsibility of providing
emergency support (i) Ministry of home affairs (ii) Ministry of health
and family welfare.
The officials from the health, irrigation water, sanitation, police and fire
services department and representatives of national and international
NGO’s forms that District Disaster Management committee.

. The officers from the social welfare, health, water and sanitation,
police and fire services department and different government and non-
government organizations are the part of BDMS.

The primary purpose of UNDMT is to ensure prompt effective and

country level disaster preparedness by the UN system and the response
when appropriate.

The Nehru Yuva Kendras were launched in the year 1972 as part of the
silver jubilee celebration of India Independence with the objective of
providing the non-student rural youth avenues to take part in nation
building activities.

NYE functions under the ministry of youth and sports affairs, Govt. of
India. It is registered society and governed by Board of Governors under
the ministry.

In order to make a competent force, training right from the school to the
higher education courses about disaster management is being introduced.
It has been designed with a purpose to sensitize students in all the
aspects of disaster management.

As a District Magistrate of a particular district, I will coordinate and

supervise powers of all the departments at the district level. I will take
efforts in tackling disasters through early warning system, relief
distribution, providing shelter to the victims, medical assistance, etc. I
will also take the help of the Disaster Management Teams, like the Fire
Services, Police, Health, Practitioners, etc.

The departments which we need to furnish to fight the disasters are

:Health department, Department of water and sanitation, Police, Fire
Services and NGOs.
The important bodies that are responsible for disaster management are
the folloing:

i) Union Cabinet headed by P.M.

ii) Group of Ministers headed by P.M.
iii) National Crisis Management Committee under the chairmanship of
the Cabinet Secretary.

The main functions of the District Disaster management committee are:

i) Helping the administration for preparation of the district disaster
management plan.
ii) Carry out mock drills.
iii) Coordinating training for the members of the disaster management
teams at the district level.
The National Civil Defence College was founded on 29th April 1957 at
Nagpur as the Central Emergency Relief Training Institute ( CERTI) to
function as the training centre of the emergency institute focuses on
advanced and specialist training to the leaders of relief services.

The motto of NSS is NOT ME BUT YOU. It underlines that the welfare
of an individual is ultimately dependent on the welfare of the society as
a whole. The Ministry of Education – introduced the National Service
Scheme during 1969 – 1970.
The disaster to be managed at National level:

The Ministry of Home Affairs is the Nodal Ministry at the centre for
coordinating
Disaster management activities for all natural hazards except drought,
which is taken care by Ministry of Agriculture under the Department of
Agriculture and Cooperation. Other ministries are assigned the
responsibility of providing emergency support in case of disasters that
fall with in their preview.

The disaster to be manager at State Level:

The Chief Minister or the Chief Secretary of the state and the Relief
Commissioner who are incharge of the relief and rehabilitation measures
in the wake of natural disasters in their states function under the overall
direction and control of the state level committee. The states have the
relief manual called as the State Relief Code and th Stte contingency
plan which guides them to manage disaster scenarios.

Home Guard is a voluntary force to assist police in controlling civil

disturbance and communal riots.

The functions of Home Guard is to:

i) Serve as an auxiliary to the police in maintenance of internal security.

ii) Help the community in any kind of emergency such as air raid, fire,
cyclone, earthquake, epidemic, etc.
iii) Promote communal harmony and assist the administration in
protecting weaker sections.
iv) Help in maintenance of essential services.
v) Participate in socio-economic and welfare activities and perform civil
defence duties.

Civil Defence and Home Guards NCC, Youth Organizations, UN

agencies, Police and para-military forces, Voluntary groups and media,
etc.

The Armed Forces are the core of the government’s response capacity.
They intervene and take on specific tasks only when the situation is
beyond the capacity of civil administration. Due to their ability to
organize action in adverse ground circumstances, speed of operational
response, the resources and capacities at their disposal, the armed forces
have historically played a major role in emergency support functions
such as communications, search and rescue operations, health and
medical facilities, transportation, power, food and civil supplies, public
works and engineering especially in the immediate aftermath of disaster.

National Cadet Corps ( NCC) : The National Cadet Corps a body formed
in 1948, aims at:

i) Developing qualities of character courage, discipline, leadership,

secular outlook, spirit of adventure and sportsmanship and the ideals of
selfless service among the youth to make them responsible citizens.
ii) Creating a human resource of organized, trained and activated youth.
iii) Providing leadership in all walks of life including the Armed Forces
and making themselves available for the service of the nation.
ALTERNATE COMMUNIATION SYSTEMS DURING
DISASTERS

One thing that all of these natural disasters have in common, besides the
tremendous loss of life and disruption to everyday lives of the populous,
is that they are immediately followed by an almost total loss of the
ability to communicate with the outside world. Power is lost, telephone
services are discontinued, and cell phone service is either non-existent or
is so congested that it takes hours to get a call through.
So, every year, companies and emergency planners face the problem of
providing continued communication before, during, and after a disaster
strikes their areas. This year, more than any other time, in the southern
part of America small, medium and large company business continuity
planners are looking for alternatives to standard communications so that
they can keep their business and critical operations running in the
aftermath of a devastating event.

Failure modes
Most companies continue to rely upon the standard telephone system for
their communications needs. In order to provide this service the
telecommunications carrier, regardless of where you are located in the
world, relies upon either copper wire or fiber optic cables from its
central offices to its customers' premises. This 'last mile' can either be
above ground, which is in the majority of cases, or underground. We
have all seen those graphic pictures of poles and trees uprooted and
thrown to the ground after a hurricane or tornado have devastated an
area. When this happens that last mile of connectivity between the
business and its telephone provider, Internet provider, or application
service provider are abruptly disconnected and utility power is lost.
Underground cables are not entirely safe from disruption of service
either. Many times due to flooding and/or power loss these underground
services are disrupted as well. In the case of cell phone providers the cell
towers receive your cell phone's call they then route it to a local central
office. These towers or the equipment inside of them can also be
damaged or destroyed as well as the last mile circuits which connect
those cell towers to the local telephone network. So cell phone service is
as tenuous as the regular telephone service when a disaster strikes. I
should also mention that the southeast US is not the only area where loss
of communications services takes place and hurricanes and tornadoes are
not the only natural disasters that disrupt communications and power. In
the northeast US over the last several years ice storms and blizzards
have also taken their toll on communications and power utilities, for
example.
Usually following an event like a tornado, hurricane, blizzard or the like,
the communications and power service providers work very hard to
restore service, however, in most cases we are talking several days if not
a week for the restoration of power and phone service. This restoration
time varies depending on the size and intensity of the disaster. If it is
localized, as it could be for a tornado, then service could be restored
more quickly.
These copper and fiber optic cables also interconnect the local telephone
company's central offices to other central offices in the region and to
long distance providers, cell phone carriers, Internet and data
communications service providers anywhere in the world. These inter-
exchange or 'long haul' circuits provide the ability of interconnectivity
and communication to beyond the local area. So if your business
communicates between offices in Baton Rouge LA and St. Louis MO
there are probably several service providers and miles of cables involved
in carrying the information from one point to the other. These cables
travel above and underground and suffer the same fate as the local last
mile circuits do. However, because of the number of calls, subscribers
and the importance of these circuits, the carriers or the businesses that
use them generally employed circuit 'diversity'. What this means is that
there are multiple paths for the voice or data to travel. If one path fails
there is another which can be used to take the call to its intended
destination. This works well for such things as car vs. pole accidents,
isolated incidents like localized fires and floods, but with mass
devastation like we experienced with Hurricane Katrina or the tornadoes
in the midwest US, even the diverse routes are consumed in the overall
damage toll.
Power is another failure mode. The central offices and cell phone sites
have their own power sources in the form of batteries and emergency
generators. If the event is limited to a few hours or a few days they will
be fully operational. However, it was found that in the case of the
hurricanes and earthquakes of the last few years power has been
interrupted for several days even up to several weeks and the power
plants, central offices, or cell towers in the areas of devastation were
inaccessible for most of that time. This meant that the fuel trucks needed
to refuel the generators were unable to get to their destinations and
subsequently the central offices and cell sites went off-line.
So now that we understand that the power and communications utilities
have pl anne d for adverse events, but the intensity and massive area of
devastation often make these plans fail. It is left to the individual
business owner or operator to determine the criticality of their services
and to properly plan for potential communication and power failures that
might impact them.
In the next part of this article, I will endeavor to present the alternatives
that exist in case you experience a disastrous event with a
communication failure.

ALTERNATIVES
Before I discuss the alternatives I feel that it is important to note that
power is a main component of any recovery or mitigation strategy. That
is, without power to run these technologies they will not operate. So, it is
important to have reliable and sustainable power for the duration of the
resumption and/or recovery effort. If you cannot verify that this is the
case then alternate site recovery is the only viable alternative.

Infrared
One such alternative to commercial communication systems is infrared.
This alternative is used if a company needs to interconnect two buildings
together. Infrared provides an optical data, voice and video transmission
system. Like fiber optic cable, infrared communications systems use
laser light to transmit a digital signal between two transceivers.
However, unlike fiber, the laser light is transmitted through the air. In
order for the digital signal to be transmitted and received, there must be
clear line of site between each unit. In other words, there should be no
obstructions such as trees or buildings between the transceiver units. So,
if your wireline or wireless communications fails you can still provide
communications between two points. The only drawback is the distance
and the line-of-sight requirements.
This solution provides low-cost, high-speed wireless connectivity for a
variety of last-mile applications. It provides narrowband voice and
broadband data connectivity and the various products provide scalable,
wireless alternatives to leased lines. These infrared systems operate at
data rates of 1 Megabit to Multi Gigabit speeds and they are deployable
in one day, without requiring right-of-way or government permits for
installation. They can provide an alternative communication link in
hours instead of weeks or months. This is probably not an option for a
small business, but for a medium or large business owner the cost is
affordable. Cost can range from $10K to $25K per installation capable
of distances of up to 1000 meters.

Microwave
Another alternative to commercial communication systems is microwave
(wireless). This alternative is used if a company needs to interconnect
two buildings together that are spaced farther apart than the conventional
infrared can operate (i.e., in excess of 1000m). Microwave also provides
a data, voice and video transmission system. Unlike infrared
communications systems, which use laser light to transmit a digital
signal between two transceivers, microwave uses ultra-high frequency
radio frequency (wireless) transmission. In order for the digital signal to
be transmitted and received, there again must be clear line of site
between each unit. However, the distance that this alternative can span is
up to 60 miles as long as no obstructions such as trees or buildings are
located between the two locations. If wireline or wireless
communications fails communications between two points can still take
place. There are several drawbacks to this solution:
* Distance limited to up to 60 miles
* Requires an FCC license to operate
* Right of Way Permits may be required
* Needs highly trained technicians to install equipment
* Cost can be prohibited to small businesses.
The cost of a microwave system can be between $50K and $100K with
installation and license preparation charges to be in the area of another
$15K. It still provides a viable alternative for medium and large
businesses.
Small businesses also have an alternative of smaller wireless systems
which utilize non-licensed frequencies and which can be installed by an
IT person in the business operation. Cost is about $1000 to $2000, but I
must warn you that this is not as reliable a solution as the microwave
wireless option and reliable speeds may be slower.

Satellite
So far I have provided solutions that have been better suited for the
medium and large business operations. Satellite provides alternatives for
small, medium and large enterprises and there are various speed and
pricing options, which make it a very attractive alternative or mitigation
strategy.
Satellite phones
There are several types of satellite alternatives. If a company is only
interested in providing a short term telephone back-up alternative then
satellite phone service like INMARSAT, at&t, Iridium, Satcom, Skytel,
Worldcell, or Globalstar to name only a few offer basic voice, fax and
basic v and e-mail services. They offer mobile phone services and are
not usually capable of providing sustained data communication or
Internet types of services. However, this communications strategy is
good for keeping your senior executives and critical operations
personnel in contact during disasters. You can rent phones for about
$40/week and then pay about $1.00/minute for basic service or you can
buy the phones for $700 to $2000 each and negotiate rates in the area of
$0.85/minute. So as you can see this is not an inexpensive option, but
usable depending on the need for communications.

VSAT
VSAT is an acronym for Very Small Aperture Terminal, an earthbound
station used in satellite communications of data, voice and video signals.
A VSAT consists of two parts, a transceiver that is placed outdoors in
direct line of sight to the satellite and a device that is placed indoors to
interface the transceiver with the end user's communications device,
such as a PC. It is very much like a satellite TV setup.
VSAT service can be placed into two categories: those that provide basic
Internet access services and those that are enterprise grade. For the small
and medium sized business the Internet access type service is often what
is selected. Such offerings as: DirectWay, WildBlue, and Connexstar all
offer low cost, small business types of back up solutions which use
equipment much like the in-home satellite television services.
The data rates are in the area of 200 kbps uplink and 1.5 Mbps downlink
which is very much like residential DSL service. The cost is about $300
for the equipment and around $100 or less each month. This would
provide a small business the ability to utilize VoIP, VPN and connect to
the Internet.
For medium and large size businesses there are more sophisticated
satellite services. They require satellite antennas, which are 3 to 5 meters
in diameter and much more sophisticated and expensive equipment.
Installation of these more sophisticated satellite services can cost in the
range of $100K to $250K with monthly operational service charges from
$1000 to $5000/month. They provide quality of service and committed
information rates as part of the service. They can provide for up to 150
toll-quality phone lines, broadband Internet, and high speed data
communications and also provide secure communication (encrypted) is
required.
Satellite services can also be rented as part of a contract or call up
service. But, rental services are on a first-come-first served basis. As we
witnessed during the tropical storms of last year these portable rental
satellite service providers were inundated with requests and try as they
would there were only so many units to go around. Those who did not
plan or contract ahead were left without service.
ALTERNATIVE COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS DURING
DISASTERS

PSTN or the public switched telephone network is the prime network

responsible for transmitting and receiving voice, fax and data. All
government and private offices, police stations, fire stations, hospitals
and majority of homes and business places are serviced by the PSTN
line.

. Amateur Radio operation does not use ground based infrastructure.

Moreover these have limited power needs which can easily be met by
batteries and generations. Therefore, it has been experienced that
Amateur Radio has worked successfully when no other communication
worked.

A radio wave is an electromagnetic wave propagated by an antenna.

The floods in 2004 in Assam and Bihar submerged telephone exchanges

and damaged telephone exchanges thereby disrupting roads and railways
communication. This is the reason why the district headquarters got
totally out off from the state headquarters and neighbouring districts.

A major natural disaster or emergency situation like earthquake,

cyclone, flood, etc., leaves the public wired and wireless mobile
telephone infrastructure damaged and non-functional. This is a
transmission towers or disrupted power supply to operate telephone
exchanges and cellular transmission towers also affect the radio
communication network of police and civil authorities.

Satellite based communication systems refer to communication systems

designed for users on the earth but have some equipment in space called
a satellite. Various jobs such as taking weather pictures or finding
accurate positions are amongst the different job performed by different
satellites. These are sometimes refered to as COSMAT’s and are
essentially radio relay stations in space.

Geo-stationary orbit satellites are stationed above the earth at a position

around 36000 kms above the equator. The images of weather forecasts
and cyclone observations that we see on our television are made with the
help of images from weather satellites.

A major disaster (flood, earthquake, etc.) or emergency situation affects

telephone exchanges and communication networks thereby
disconnecting the affected areas from other parts of the world. In such
situations, the urgent needs of disaster affected population are not
communicated to government authorities, voluntary organizations and
other unaffected people. This result in severe loss of human lives,
livestock, property etc.

This situation calls for reliable alternate communication links, to ensure

that the right resources are provided to the right people at the right time.

Asynchronous Orbit Satellites – These satellites are positioned in the

lowerorbits around the earth. These continuously change their position
with respect to the earth. The different kinds of asynchronous orbit
satellites are :

a) Science satellites: These orbit in altitudes of 4800 to 9700 kms. These

send their research data to earth via radio telemetry signals.
b) Observation Satellites: These are used for tasks like search and rescue
satellites, photography. These act as relay stations to rebroadcast
emergency radio-beacon signals from a downed aircraft or ship in
trouble. These orbit at altitudes from 480 to 970 kms.
c) Global Positioning System Satellites: Orbiting at altitudes of 9600 to
19200 kms, these are used to determine in terms of latitude ad longitude
to determine the exact geographic location.

The two prime communication networks of government of India are NIC

and BSNL. Following are the functions of them:

NIC or the National Information Centre, an organization of the

Government of India is a premier science and technology organization
of the Government of India is a premier science and technology
organization in the field of informatics services and information
technology applications. To facilitate information and communication
applications in government departments at central, state and districts, it
has established a nationwide ICT network i.e. NICNET. The
Government has designated NICNET as the Government Network. It
has gateway modes in Central Government Departments, 35 state and
union territories secretariats and 602 district collect orates of India for IT
services.
BSNL : The Department of Telephone Operations, Government of India
was incorporated on 1st October, 2000 and was named Bharat Sanchar
Nigam Limited. BSNL is today the largest public sector undertaking in
India with a network of over 45 million lines, covering 5000 towns with
over 35 million telephone connections, it has become the country’s
leading telecommunication company expansion of telecom network,
improvement of the quality of telecom in rural areas are some of its
major responsibilities.