One rainy afternoon, while cleaning out an old trunk, Santa found a set of books.
These weren’t ordinary books.
These were beautifully illustrated, with simple diagrams and clear instructions in both Hindi and Garhwali.
The title read: “A Guide to Earthquake-Safe Homes for the Mountains.”
The drawings showed local masons how to add reinforcing bands and secure roofs using techniques that were simple and affordable.
“Banta, come look at this!” Santa called out, dusting off the cover.
“This is amazing!”
“It’s so easy to understand.”
“If every person in our village had this book, we could all make our homes safer.”
“Where did it come from?”
“I’ve never seen a government book this useful.”
Banta took the book, his fingers tracing the logo on the cover—an outline of the state with the letters DMMC inside.
A sad, knowing look crossed his face.
“This, Santa, is the ghost of a brilliant idea.”
“You are holding the work of the Disaster Mitigation and Management Centre, the original brain of our state’s safety system.”
“The ghost?”
“What happened to it?”
Banta sat down heavily.
“It was murdered, my friend.”
“A death by a thousand cuts, followed by a final, fatal government order.”
“After the 2013 disaster, a new body, the USDMA, was empowered.”
“And in a stunningly short-sighted move, the government declared that having two organizations was a misuse of public funds.”
“So they performed an institutional lobotomy.”
“They dismantled the DMMC.”
He tapped the book.
“The very people who created this, the experts who understood our local geology and our culture, who had won the highest national awards for their work… they were transferred to the new department, only to be humiliated, sidelined, and pushed out.”
“There was an exodus of expertise.”
“The state amputated its own institutional memory.”
He looked at Santa, his eyes filled with a deep sorrow.
“So now, we have an administrative body that is good at issuing orders from Dehradun, but we have lost the institution that had the soul and the expertise to do the real work on the ground—the training, the research, the awareness.”
“You are holding a book made by the brain.”
“And you are living in a body that has lost its mind.”
संता – बंता की इस जुगलबन्दी से आज हमने क्या सीखा:-
- जानें / Discover: राज्य के गठन के उपरान्त से आपदा पूर्व-तैयारी सम्बंधित प्रशिक्षणों व जागरूकता कार्यक्रमो से ले कर आपदा उपरान्त सर्वेक्षण व समन्वय संबंधित कार्यो को सफलतापूर्वक कर रहे आपदा न्यूनीकरण एवं प्रबन्धन केन्द्र को 2019 में अचानक बंद कर दिया गया / Uttarakhand’s pioneering and highly acclaimed Disaster Mitigation and Management Centre (DMMC) was dismantled after the 2013 floods.
- विज्ञान / Science: आपदा प्रबन्धन में संस्थागत यादाश्त सर्वाधिक नाजुक परन्तु महत्वपपूर्ण कड़ी है। अनुभवी, प्रशिक्षित तथा स्थानीय विशेषज्ञों को जल्दबाजी में किनारे कर देने या बाहर का रास्ता दिखा देने से संस्था या राज्य की प्रासंगिक आपदा जोखिम न्यूनीकरण कार्यक्रमों के क्रियान्वयन की क्षमता में कमी आती है / Institutional memory is the most critical and fragile asset in disaster management. When experienced, specialized local experts are sidelined or forced out, a state loses its ability to implement nuanced, context-specific DRR, leading to a “brain drain.”
- विवेचना / Reflect: दोहराव के निराकरण जैसे त्रुटिपूर्ण तर्कों के आधार पर किये गये आधिकारिक पुनर्गठन से आपदा जोखिम न्यूनीकरण हेतु वांछित विशेषज्ञता का ह्रास होने से दीर्घकालिक क्षति हो सकती है / Bureaucratic restructuring, driven by flawed logic like “avoiding duplication,” can have devastating long-term consequences, effectively lobotomizing the very expertise needed for proactive safety.
- उत्तरदायित्व / Responsibility: हमें अपने विशेषज्ञ संस्थानों का महत्त्व समझते हुवे उंनका संरक्षण करना चाहिये। लम्बे समय से सफलतापूर्वक चल रही संस्थाओ को बंद कर उनके स्थान पर केवल सरकारी खानापूरी के लिये नयी संस्थाओ को खड़ा करने की स्थिति में नागरिको को सरकार से सवाल पूछने चाहिये / We must protect and value our expert institutions. Citizens have a responsibility to question government decisions that dismantle proven, successful bodies in favour of new, untested, or purely administrative structures.
संता – बंता की यह जुगलबन्दी आपको कैसी लगी, कृपया हमें जरुर बताये
व
इस जुगलबन्दी को बेहतर बनाने के लिये अपने सुझाव अवश्य दें।
हमें हमेशा की तरह आपके सुझावों, प्रतिक्रियाओं व कटाक्षो का बेसब्री से इंतजार रहता हैं और सच मानिये इसी के आधार पर हम अपने आप में, अपनी सोच व रचनात्मकता में सुधार करने को प्रेरित होते हैं।
सो अच्छा – बुरा जैसा आपको महसूस हुवा हो, कमेंट जरुर करते रहें।
#InstitutionalMemory #BrainDrain #DMMC #USDMA #PolicyFailure #Governance #ExpertiseMatters#SantaBanta
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