The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) was certainly doing good, but now doing better under the leadership of the DG, OP Singh. This IPS officer of the 1983 batch was designated as Director General of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), India’s premier federal specialized force for responding to natural disasters and CBRN emergencies.
Determination coupled with diligence
When it comes to responsibilities, OP Singh has been exemplary in performing his duties. He holds vast experience and deep insight into the functioning of law enforcement, security, intelligence, crime prevention, managing mega-events, and criminal investigation. He has also served in various organizations in the Government of India such as Special Protection Group (PM’s security), CRPF dealing with issues connected with internal security of the country as well as CISF looking after security of 59 airports of the country.
Not only this but while serving as DG of NDRF, this officer has shown the best of the best task deliveries for which he was adorned with the Distinguished Leadership Award for Disaster Resilience by All India Council of Human Rights, Liberties & Social Justice on International Human Rights Day in 2015.
The NDRF witnessed change
As chief of India’s specialized Response Force, he has led major search and rescue operations in various natural disasters that hit the country in 2014-16. In Jammu & Kashmir urban flood, he did galvanize his force immediately and led the humanitarian rescue operations.
Who can forget what the Nepal earthquake caused to the neighbour nation and how strong did India stand in rescue and relief operations for weeks? The leadership of Nepal was nothing but grateful to the Indian counterpart for its immense support that made headlines for a number of national-daily.
Then NDRF under his command, conducted excellent urban search and rescue work which was appreciated by United Nations at the global level and by the Government of Nepal. Also, he prided being on part of the rescue mission during Chennai Urban Flood in 2015 where NDRF, under his close supervision, saved thousands of human lives.
Engagement, Awareness and Empowerment is the MANTRA
During his leadership position with NDRF, he oversaw a budget of approximately $ 148 million and planned and executed 8 major disaster response programmes benefiting more than 30 million people in India and Nepal. His strategy of making the local communities aware and awake and empowering units of NDRF with pieces of training and techniques brought a change to the department that was thoroughly studied in a case study of NDRF done by IIT Delhi.
As Chief of the Response Force, he contributed towards the refinement of Disaster Management Plan, development of capacity building of various stakeholders, and conduct of SAADMEx 2015 attended by SAARC countries of the region. He has a dozen presentations based on NDRF in his name that reflect his experience and journey and also the capabilities of this super-powerful team that works when nothing else does, we call it NDRF.
Natural calamities and disasters cannot be controlled. What can be controlled in these are the damages they cause to humankind. Mitigation of such damages that come in the form of debris or deaths is possible only when one has an impactful strategy to deal with them, strategies that may be implemented with ease, that certainly make a big change to what we refer to as ‘death toll’.
