India is first respondent in humanitarian assistance: Shah
New Delhi: Underlining the need to build disaster resilient infrastructures, Union Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah on Friday said that India has always been the first respondent in situations of humanitarian assistance and disaster management in Indian subcontinent.
Addressing the 10th meeting here of the heads of departments dealing with the prevention and elimination of emergency situations in Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member states, Shah said: “India attaches special importance to the SCO as an excellent platform for synergizing the efforts of all member states in the field of multilateral, political, security, economic and people-to-people interaction in the region and developing personal understanding amongst counterpart teams when they work together to tackle any disaster situation.”
Shah said that India has participated in more than 20 ministerial meetings in the last two years.
“India has always been the first respondent in situations of humanitarian assistance and disaster management in the Indian subcontinent region,” he said.
The Home Minister stressed on the need for all stakeholders to focus on “building disaster resilient infrastructure to minimize the loss of precious lives and property”.
He said that taking the initiative in this direction in September 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) at the UN Climate Action Summit 2019 in New York.
Shah also expressed the hope that the meeting would bring together all the SCO nations to deliberate on an effective strategy to build disaster resilient infrastructure and bolster each others’ capabilities to efficiently tackle future disasters by exchanging best practices.