Imphal, March 25: Members of the Manipur Legislative Assembly have recommended introduction of 'Manipur Disaster Management Bill' in the next session of the Assembly.

The recommendation was made during a seminar on National Disaster Management held at the Manipur Legislative Assembly premise today.

With exception of Ministers, the seminar held with Speaker Dr Maniruddin Sheikh in the chair, was attended by most of the Assembly members.

MLAs RK Dorendra and Dr M Nara, and chairman of Hill Area Committee Songchinkhup were the panel members of the seminar.

Giving the inaugural address, Dr Maniruddin said the havoc caused by tsunami of December 26, 2004 is still fresh in the minds of the people.

All the Assembly members had also expressed solidarity to suffering of the victims.

"The deteriorating environmental condition of the place where we live in is of grave concern today and we should not take the matter very lightly," he said.

Of late we have been experiencing frequent occur- rences of drought, flood, gale and mud-slides and so it is high time to make necessary measures to prevent recurrence of such natural disaster and save the lives of the people, he exhorted.

The declaration of year 1990 to 2000 as the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction by the General Assembly of United Nations should be considered as a guiding spirit in this connection, the Speaker added.

While pointing out that the Government of India has taken up various disaster management measures, he said the State Government has also set up a Disaster Management Department with a view to provide relief and rehabilitation to victims.

As part of a long term plan, appropriate chapter on disaster management should be included in the undergraduate engineering courses along with imparting basic knowledge of disaster management to the students of class VII, IX and X, he proposed.

As resource person of the seminar, Dr Arun Kumar of Department of Earth Sciences, Manipur University deliberated on what constitutes disaster management, its types and requisite measures to be taken up to meet any eventuality.

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