CHAPTER- 4: PREPAREDNESS
22 | Page PERFORMANCE AUDIT OF
Natural Disaster in Uttarakhand, June 2013 Response, Relief Restoration of the Damaged Infrastructure of Immediate Nature
is not acceptable as there was no DDMP in place in district Rudraprayag as was stated by the DDMA, Rudraprayag during the course of audit.
4.7 Preparation and maintenance of Database
i The State Government did not have any mechanism in place to register the Char-Dham pilgrims either at the entry points for the pilgrimage or at the base camps. As a result, the Government
did not have the exact number of pilgrims and tourists, the most vulnerable people in the disaster who were out of their homes. There was no immediate information on how many
had got trapped or had gone missing at various places en route the Char-Dham. This led to wide variance in igures of stranded persons, dead and missing persons on a day to day basis.
Existence of a comprehensive database of pilgrims would have helped the State Government in determining the exact number of pilgrims who had got stranded or were missing. This would
also have beefed up the level of preparedness of the administration and ensured a more directed and effective evacuation strategy.
Audit also observed that registration of Char-Dham pilgrims is now being undertaken at identiied access points which is a welcome measure.
ii A database of demographic details at village panchayat level should also have been prepared and updated periodically as a measure of improving response and relief distribution. This would
also have facilitated proper and fair distribution of relief materials and ex-gratia payments to the affected people. Such a system, in turn, would have left little scope for discrepancies.
In the absence of any data bank in respect of houses, land records and livestock, the relief ex-gratia payments in lieu of damaged infrastructure loss of human lives and loss of live
stock were being made on the basis of reports prepared by the Revenue Sub-Inspector RSI without any reference to any revenue other Government records in their reports. Thus, no
cross veriication of RSI’s reports was made before making payments.
However, the Government has now set up a Committee to review the existing codes and manuals for relief distribution.
4.8 Preparedness for maintenance of supplies
