GEPR GIS Based Emergency Planning & Response System

Organization : Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change
Service Name : GIS Based Emergency Planning & Response System
Website : http://gepr.nic.in/home.aspx
Data Entry Registration : http://gepr.nic.in/DataEntryRegistration.aspx

GIS Based Emergency Planning & Response System

** Chemical industries are spread throughout the country in isolation as well as in clusters. These industries, due to the nature of their processes and products require storage and handling of various types of chemicals – several of them hazardous in nature.

Related / Similar Service : CAMPA e-Green Watch

** Despite using the latest safety systems/equipment and technologies, hazardous chemicals and processes do pose a possible threat to society. The trauma of the Bhopal gas tragedy is still fresh in people’s memories where in less than two hours, over 2000 people died due to accidental release of toxic Methyl Isocyanate (MIC).

** Even after Bhopal, the frequency of chemical accidents has reduced, though not sufficiently. Considering the seriousness of the recurring loss of life and property, such accidents need to be minimized to the extent possible and those that occur, tackled immediately to reduce such losses.

** The Ministry of Environment,Forest & Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Government of India is the nodal ministry for management of hazardous substances and related issues. MoEF&CC has done commendable efforts over the last two decades to ensure safe handling of hazardous chemicals so as to minimize the number of accidents involving such chemicals.

** The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 has been promulgated followed by the Manufacture, Storage and Import of Hazardous Chemicals Rules, 1989 (amended in 2000) and Chemical Accidents (Emergency Planning Preparedness and Response) Rules, 1996.

** These rules have put the responsibilities on industrial units, district authorities, state and central governments to take adequate steps towards minimization of chemical accidents and improvement of emergency response systems.

** Identification and labeling of hazardous chemicals, development of material safety data sheets, carrying out annual safety audits, development of onsite emergency plans, conducting onsite mock drills twice a year, are some of the legal requirements under these rules.

** The MoEF&CC has funded several projects in past few years to cover Major Accident Hazard (MAH) units throughout the country for their rapid safety audits and hazard analyses – to assess risk posed by such units, calculate the extent of damage under different failure scenarios and assess their preparedness levels

** Continuing with its objective of loss prevention from chemical accidents, which is a major concern of the Ministry of Environment,Forest & Climate Change (MoEF&CC), it has taken an initiative in 2002 to develop GIS Based Emergency Planning and Response (GEPR) System for clusters of Major Accident Hazard (MAH) units.

** This web application that you are in, is result of almost a decade of efforts spanning IV phases covering almost a thousand MAH units in 63 districts across 15 industrialized states of the country. This prodict comes with several improvements over the previous phases notably the software is now web based with high resolution mapping and data updating capability.

The Way Forward:
** We believe that the product evolves by feedback. Necessity is the mother of invention and therefore we have reached this level through constant communication with the user and transporting their requirements through domain experts to the development team to bring about the desired changes.

** We strive to come-up with still better versions with various additional features and modules (some of which are under development) and more will be added based on your feedback and suggestions to make it better. For any feedback or suggestions please feel free to write to gahlout@nic.in, arpita@nic.in, gepr@nic.in or harsh@aceindia.net.