DW BUREAU / Chandigarh The Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration, Punjab, (MGSIPA) in collaboration with National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) organized three-day online training programme on "Incident Response System (IRS) for Northern States ? Punjab and Ladakh" here on Wednesday. Over 400 participants from various districts of Punjab and Ladakh registered their participation. The objective of the training programme is to sensitize the participating agencies on disaster risk with analysis of past and recent major disasters, to provide information on Incident Response System guidelines and apprise the participants about this system and its approaches. K.B.S. Sidhu, Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab-cum-Director General, MGSIPA inaugurated this National Event. While launching this three-day online programme, K.B.S. Sidhu underscored the need of broadbasing the Incident Response System with full administrative and technical support and fully activated state chapters to achieve the objectives enshrined in its guidelines framework. He suggested that trained manpower equipped with world's best practices should be associated with this task for immediate tackling the exigencies involved in the disaster of any kind with follow up effective strategies to minimize the loss of lives and properties. He stated that a sound team work culture and effective coordination among various participating agencies with effective command to guide the endeavour is must for achieving desired goals of Incident Response System in any kind of disaster. He exhorted that there should be no scope for adhocism & casual approach and the speedy response by the participating agencies should be smooth and result-oriented. Emphasizing the need of updating the skills and practices being followed at the global level, Sidhu further proposed that the Government of India and NIDM must strengthen the state chapters and update its manpower with disaster management strategies being followed by other advanced countries. He said that our training strategies must be evaluated constantly and critical gaps, if any, matching the world's best practices in disaster management must be closly looked and filled on priority basis. He said that after remodeling and restructuring our strategies at the national level, the state governments should be involved to train its manpower accordingly for tackling the emergencies arising due to disasters. Sidhu appreciated the efforts of NIDM for undertaking such training programmes for the state government functionaries. He said that modern equipments must be identified and the same should be made available to the state governments for meeing the urgent requirements in case of occurrence of any kind of disasters. He said that concept of community capacity building by the National Disaster Management Authority should be promoted. Prominent among others who are taking part in the deliberations during this online three-day Jaspreet Talwar, Principal Secretary, Punjab and Director, MGSIPA, Major General Manoj Kumar Bindal, Executive Director, NIDM, Government of India, Shekher Chaturvedi, Assistant Professor, Division of Disaster Response and Recovery, NIDM, New Delhi, Balaji Singh Chowhan, South Asia Expert United States Forest Services, Col. V.N. Supanekar (Retd.), Professorand Expert, ICS, Disaster Management, Col. Dalbir Singh, General Manager (Training, Project and Consultancy), MGSIPA and Nitika Panjab University, Chandigarh. (editor@dailyworld.in)