I always wondered if some priority things are not taken care of by the authorities whenever disaster strikes and the crisis unfolds. I have compiled here a cheat sheet for the authorities who can probably give a thought. I have tried my best to put things in the list; not denying the fact that it can indeed be made exhaustive. The moment an area has been declared a disaster zone, the authorities can activate the following processes by default with immediate effect.
Common to all Authorities
(1) Use Google maps effectively and classify the zones inside the disaster zone in a scale of 5 where 5 denotes the scale of disaster as “very severe”.
(2) Give the contact information of the authorities concerned taking care of the area in the map with their name and phone number.
(3) Needless to say that the authorities have to give the access to this sheet to all the citizens.
Financial Authorities
(1) Take stock of areas where flooding is minimum and take measures to stock up the ATM there.
(2) Make arrangements for mobile ATMs and ATMs on boat
(3) By default, if EMI are not paid on time by the loanee in the disaster zone, no bounce or late charges or any other charges to be collected. Can the banks not make this provision in their financial applications?
(4) Make people use any bank’s ATM as a default process. No charges whatsoever should be collected for making use of other bank’s ATMs how many ever times.
(5) Cancel all default bank holidays till normalcy returns.
Law Authorities
(1) Imprison hoarders immediately and put them behind bars if found selling essential items at exorbitant rates. Enact a law immediately and jail them for a minimum of 1 year. Take enough care that this law is not misused by political parties.
(2) Imprison party men who are found to be harassing volunteers helping in aid efforts to a minimum of 2 years. The respective party should be forced to strip the defiant member of the party from his/her primary membership of the party.
(3) Keep a watchful eye on the opposition parties too as they might also indulge in disrupting the aid movement aiming at bringing bad repute to the government. Any such member caught should be imprisoned for a minimum of 2 years with a hefty fine.
(4) Ban pasting any kind of stickers depicting leaders with political, apolitical or religious background. This can ensure that petty politics is not played during crisis times.
(5) Constitute an autonomous body consisting of Government officials, prominent and local NGOs for fair distribution of aid.
I have enclosed a Google spread sheet for users who could come up with ideas of more such measures.
Disaster Zone – Cheat Sheet
Please feel free to give your mail Ids so that I can add you and you can add your ideas to the list. Kindly ensure that there are no repetition.
