The central government has approved setting up of a new national centre for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) mitigation and training centre to train people to respond to a crisis arising out of any of the four components.

“The CBRN mitigation and training centre in Panipat will look after the training of military, para-military and civilian agencies,” W Selvamurthy, chief controller (R&D) of Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) told Governance Now in an interview.

The centre will focus on training, simulation, prediction of lethality and emergency response during a crisis. “We will focus on the place where an incident occurs, digital map of the area, number of hospitals existing there and contaminated roads to prepare accordingly,” adds Selvamurthy. This is part of emergency response, training as well as creating awareness in people against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear risks.

“India is a large country with 1.2 billion people living. It has porous borders and we need to do more than what we have done so far…War should not be our sole worry. We should prepare ourselves for other possible crisis as well,” points out Selvamurthy.

The preparedness for the civilian sector will happen through national disaster management authority (NDMA). “The NDMA is writing to different state disaster management authority (SDMA) to get prepared with equipment and technologies,” says the top scientist of the DRDO.

The CBRN mitigation and training centre will be part of Delhi-based Institute of Nuclear Medicine & Allied Sciences (INMAS), which is a DRDO laboratory especially dealing with consequences of the use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.