DW BUREAU / chandigarh Aiming to sensitize the administrative authorities and other stakeholders on disaster management and to develop their capacities to face the challenges in emergent situations, Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration, Punjab, (MGSIPA) in collaboration with National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) organized online three-day training programme on "Incident Response System: Basic and Intermediate" for Northern States (Part I). Launching the first event of its kind in the Northern region, K.B.S. Sidhu, Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab-cum-Director General, MGSIPA emphasized the need of close and effective coordination at individual, societal and institutional levels to undertake preparedness measures to minimize the effect of any kind of disaster and ensure a swift response to reduce the losses in case of occurrence of such natural calamities. He said that various stakeholder departments such as Health, Police, Firefighting, Civil Defence, Power and Traffic Control must create an "Incident Response Mechanism" in their respective organizations to immediately come in action and join vigorously as warriors in rescue operations in such hazardous situations. Sharing his practical knowledge and experiences based on his long administrative career in different capacities at state and national level, Sidhu said that in case of floods and other natural disasters, the top priority of the administration should be on saving human lives followed by focus on livestock and other properties of the inhabitants. The NIDM experts Balaji Singh, South Asia Expert, USFS and Shekher Chaturvedi, Assistant Professor, NIDM highlighted the importance of the online training programme on Incident Response System and expressed satisfaction over the huge response from the participants. As per rough estimates over 885 participants from different organizations registered themselves for this three-day online training programme. (editor@dailyworld.in)