International Conference on "Spatial Data Infrastructure and its Role in Disaster Management"
October 24, 2005, Chennai

Welcome Address by Shri R. Muthu, Chairman, FICCI, Tamilnadu State Council

• Thiru S. Regupathy, Hon'ble Minister of State for Home Affairs
  
• Shri Vinod C Menon, Member, National Disaster Management Authority
  
• Thiru P Murari, Advisor to the President, FICCI
  
• Ladies and Gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to be present this morning at the International Conference on Spatial Data Infrastructure and Its Role in Disaster Management. We, recently experienced a natural calamity in the form of a devastating tsunami on 26th December 2004, which affected our country considerably and particularly Tamil Nadu, leading to considerable destruction of property, heavy casualties and loss of livelihood of thousands.

The Tsunami of 2004 and similar disasters would not have turned into such wide spread calamities if we had been prepared for the disaster in time which is why the time is opportune for us to discuss the "Role of Spatial Data Infrastructure" and the "Power of Information" which can help us to prepare for and mitigate disasters better. I believe that this event will be instrumental in making us realize the importance of having such an infrastructure in place that would assist us in arriving at suitable methodologies for confronting specific disasters. Similar disasters in developed nations have caused far less casualties, possibly due to effective mitigatory and preventive measures taken by them.

I would also like to point out certain measures that the Government of Tamil Nadu adopted during the rehabilitation work post-tsunami, hoping that it would benefit our policymakers to formulate appropriate policies. The relief measures included the construction of permanent houses for homeless families in tsunami-affected villages, the construction of schools, hospitals, child welfare centers, primary health centers, grants of relief to families of the deceased, the distribution of essential commodities such as rice, grocery items, kerosene, relief packages to affected farmers (damages to crops) and fisher folk (damages to fishing implements such as boats, engines and nets) and relief assistance to affected women.

With this, I would like to thank the organizers for having invited me to this conference and wish the participants a fruitful discussion and a complementable action plan to anticipate such disasters, take prompt action to rehabilitate the victims and put in place a permanent structure for meeting contingencies.

Thank you.