Civil Defence

1. In India, Civil Defence Department started on 24-10-1941 with appointment of Dr. Raghavindra Rao as the 1st CD Member of Governor General's Executive Council.

2. In the wake of Chinese Aggression in Nov 1962, Civil Defence was revived in December, 1962 by making Civil Defence Rules under the Defence of India Act, 1962 – Law since lapsed.

3. It got expanded considerably in the wake of Indo-Pak War in 1971.

4. The organization got its considerable fillip after Indo-Pak War in 1965.Then Govt. of India enacted Civil Defence Act, 1968 & framed Civil Defence Rules & regulations there in. Further, Civil Defence Act, 1968 was amended in 2009and "Disaster Management" was incorporated as an additional role for Civil Defence.

5. In Odisha, Civil Defence started its functioning initially at Rourkela and Sambalpur as in the town centric approach.

6. Further, it extended to Cuttack, Bhubaneswar, Paradeep and Talcher as the categorized C.D. towns in 1982.

7. Consequent upon addition, deletion, up-gradation & down gradation of C.D. by Govt. of India, Cuttack and Sambalpur towns were deleted in 1992 and Koraput was added as a category-II Civil Defence town.

8. In 2007 under Revamping of Civil Defence (centrally sponsored scheme), the Civil Defence has been re-oriented from Town-centric to District-centric approach. Thus, in India 100 Multi Hazard Districts have been identified, out of which 50 MHDs were taken to come up with Civil Defence preparedness and be strengthened at the first phase in the country.

9. Accordingly in Odisha, 5 districts namely Balasore, Bhadrak, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur and Dhenkanal were declared as MHDs. Hence, the Civil Defence activities are being taken at the 9 districts taking Khordha, Sundargarh, Angul & Koraput along with the above 5 MHDs. The district Magistrates of the above districts are functioning as the Controllers of Civil Defence.

10. Government in Home Department have notified the D.G., F.S. & C.G., H.Gs as the ex-officio Director, Civil Defence w.e.f 01-01-2011 being the Heads of department. Thus, the Civil Defence Directorate is now functioning at the Vigilance Directorate Building, 3rd floor, Nuapatna, Buxibazar, Cuttack.

11. In 2014, under 'Mainstreaming Civil Defence in Disaster Risk Reduction' (centrally sponsored scheme) Ganjam and Puri districts have been included as Multi Hazard Districts.

12. For strengthening the volunteer base for disaster management, all the Fire Stations of the state is now going to function as capacity building nodes for Civil Defence volunteers". As such, 278 Fire Service Officers have been trained in 'Civil Defence Orientation' training programme.

13. The Fire Service Officers have been tasked to train at least 1% of young and able-bodied population of every habitation in fire & disaster response, as it is observed that about of 50% deaths takes place during initial 30 mnts and it takes about that much time for Fire Service to reach the incident site. These trained persons can contain/limit the damage.They also act as local guides and force multipliers to the 1st Responder i.e. Fire Service.

14. Sanctioned strength of paid staff (excluding that of Directorate) is 51, and present strength is 29. In 2014, Govt. sanctioned 5 posts (one each of Asst. Director, Section Officer, Senior Asst., Junior Asst. & Steno) for the Directorate of Civil Defence.

15. Active Civil Defence volunteers in old CD towns like, Bhubaneswar, Koraput, Rourkela, Talcher & Paradeep are approx. as follows:-

Koraput -- -------100
Talcher ---------- 100
Paradeep -------- Nil
Rourkela ------- --150
Bhubaneswar -- --200
Total ---------- --550

16. Recently the raised Civil Defence volunteers at the Multi Hazard Districts are 1190. They are as follows:-

Balasore ----------255
Bhadrak ----------255
Jagatsinghpur -----255
Kendrapara ------255
Dhenkanal -------170
Total -----------1190

Synergy between FS, HGs & CD:-

1. Already achieved at Fire Station level (as HGs are Auxiliary Fire Force & Fire Stations being developed as capacity building nodes for Civil Defence activities.

2. Already achieved at State level as the FS, HGs & CD are a combined Head of Department.