Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah on Saturday welcomed the second mountaineering expedition of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Vijay, here on its return from a successful climb of the 21,625 feet high Mount Manirang in Himachal Pradesh.

He hailed the NDRF jawans for their successful expedition and said that such strenuous operations by the jawans with indomitable courage increase efficiency of individuals and the force as a whole.

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He said arduous campaigns inculcate a habit of accomplishing goals, conquering and overcoming unimaginable difficulties to reach the goal. Mr Shah said that it is the habit of victory that makes a person and force great.

The Home Minister said that some jawans have achieved success in this operation today, but in the true sense, this success belongs to the entire NDRF. He said that the jawans have not only conquered the heights of Mount Manirang but have worked to boost the morale of the entire force.

He said that mountaineering is not just a skill but an art of living and mastering this art forms an education for the whole life. The Home Minister congratulated the 35 personnel who achieved success in Operation Vijay and the Director General, NDRF for the achievement as a symbol of the force.

The Home Minister announced on the occasion that 16,000 personnel of NDRF will get Risk and Hardship Allowance at the rate of 40 per cent. There was a demand for this allowance for a long time and the Government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had accepted it on Friday.

Mr Shah said that the Prime Minister is very concerned and aware about disaster management and the success achieved by India in this field is the result of this. He said that in 10 years between 2004 and 2014, a total budget of Rs 66,000 crore was allocated to SDRF and NDRF for disaster relief, which has been increased to Rs 2 lakh crore in the 10 years from 2014 to 2024.

Mr Shah said that “at one time, our approach to disaster in India was only relief-centric, but under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, now a zero casualty approach is being adopted for disaster management, not a relief-centric approach.”

In the last 10 years of Prime Minister Modi’s tenure, best practices from around the world have been put in place in India to deal with disasters, he said. The Home Minister was briefed by team leaders of various disaster response incidents in India and Turkey on the occasion.

He said that achievements should never become a reason for satisfaction, but inspire achieving more difficult goals. In future, he said, challenges can come due to climate change, and threats of avalanches, landslides, floods and storms are going to increase everywhere.

Keeping this in mind, “we should move firmly towards the goal of Zero Casualty by resorting to science. He said that we still have to increase our efficiency in many areas and also bring results, such as forest fires.”

He said that saving human lives is not the only objective during forest fires, “but we have to bring experiments happening all over the world on how to save forests and what we can do so that there is no fire on the ground.” He said that there is need to prepare for the floods caused by cloudbursts.

The Home Minister took keen interest in various NDRF operations in flood water rescue, landslides, collapsed structure search and rescue, chemical biological radiological nuclear response mechanism (CBRN), mountain rescue, borewell rescue and cyclone response.

He was shown various initiatives taken for improvising equipment by the NDRF for their better utilisation. Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla and Director General, NDRF Piyush Anand were present on the occasion.