Dharamsala: With the onset of winters, district collector, Kangra Dr. Nipun Jindal has issued an advisory asking tourists and trekkers to avoid venturing into high altitudes in bad weather.
Dr Jindal did review the pre-preparedness of the concerned departments for better management of natural calamity and better handling of any emergency arising due to possible snowfall in high altitude areas in the district during winter.
At the high level meeting on Tuesday, Dr Jindal discussed the measures to deal with the situation of heavy snowfall in the winter season and the damage caused by it in particular areas of the district.
He asked the concerned departments to make adequate pre-arrangements for the safety of public money and all officers to be fully prepared in case of any kind of disaster in winter.
The district magistrate said that generally the areas of Bada and Chota Bhangal and Mcleodganj of the district are affected by snowfall, so as a pre-preparation, adequate storage of food items, essential life-saving medicines and availability of necessary machinery should be ensured in these areas.
Dr. Jindal said that a permanent Emergency Operation Center has been established at the DC Office in Dharamshala with the objective of providing all assistance to the people in case of emergency. The phone number of this operation center which is functional 24 hours is 1077.
DC asked the officials to take appropriate steps to prevent all people including tourists visiting the concerned areas from venturing into high altitude areas and trekking in bad weather.
Additional District Magistrate Rohit Rathore, Additional Superintendent of Police Badri Singh, SDM Dharamshala Shilpi Bekta, SDMs of all sub-divisions and officers of other departments were present in the meeting.
Arvind Sharma is an award winning bi-lingual journalist with more than 20 years of experience.
He has worked with Divya Himachal, Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhasker, Vir Partap, Ajit and PTI.
In 2010, he was conferred the Himachal Kesri journalism award. He reports on the Tibetan Government in Exile, politics, sports, tourism and other topics. He lives in Dharamshala.
