Chairman's Message - Chairman's Message

Indiatimes | My Mail | Make Timesfoundation your home page


	Home About Us Programmes Initiatives & Events Civil Society News Resources Contact Us
Chairman's Message l Overview l Core Verticals l Awards & Recognition l Careers

Chairman's Message

Natural disasters have been occurring all over from time to time with varying degrees of intensity resulting in loss of precious human lives and live stocks and loss of co-laterals that have been impacting both physical and human infrastructure adversely. This loss becomes severe in places where people are vulnerable and have limited or no access to community infrastructure.

India has had a complex history of disasters ranging from the early 19 th century; famines in Bengal to Earthquake in Gujarat and J&K to the recent floods in Bihar. There has been recurrence of some major disasters and despite all advanced facilities of detection and mitigation, disaster predictability has eluded us. There needs to be a serious thinking on evolving reliable predictability mechanism for prediction which warns communities around coasts. This will to a large extent help vulnerable communities and provide them with reliable data and information to adjudge the situation and avoid subsequent difficulties. For this reason alone, effective institutional arrangements are needed to bring all stakeholders together on a common platform.

Realizing the impact that disasters make on people, live stocks and ecology, Times Foundation has been proactive and been involved in task of addressing issues of devastated infrastructure in wake of natural calamities. The Foundation has always taken the lead in providing mitigation and adaptation techniques to communities that get affected in such disasters. It has provided its expertise of reaching out to people and used its convening power to bring all stakeholders together to address the task of community infrastructure creation. The Foundation built 97 dwelling units in Cuddalore following Tsunami in Chennai and handed them over to those affected in the devastating Tsunami. The Foundation has always intervened as a catalyst and a facilitator to work with nongovernmental agencies, affected communities and also with the government. It has also deployed and adopted innovative steps to bring in much needed resources and facilitation of the governments both at the state and the national level to address the cause of post relief issues and allied necessities of those affected by the calamity.

Various initiatives that the Foundation has taken over time have impacted those who suffered in disasters meaningfully. This could be made possible as the Foundation adopted bottom up approaches convening all important stakeholders in the process of its initiation of the project. The Foundation has always monitored the impact of resources, energies and manpower, deployed in creating sustainable rural infrastructure. I have personally always felt that it is important to keep impact assessment, monitoring and the benefit index on communities at the back of mind while initiating any program for community support through rural infrastructure. The Foundation has always stayed course on such aspects of community service and brought the same to the notice of others’ as well. Majority of the outcomes of such initiatives are replicable and also set a good tone for public private partnership.

The role being played by all agencies is very important in such matters as one single and isolated effort would not hold much ground. The call of the day is that all concerned stakeholders bring their experience, expertise and resources together in providing vulnerable and marginalized communities what they need in time. Innovative development strategies, collective approach and a joint action plan will provide a supportive ground for off take of community centric efforts. Such efforts will succeed on the ground better if community is involved in decision making process for better ownership and also if such processes are vertically and horizontally linked to viable livelihood option, making their dreams of an equitable, a just and a liberal society a reality.

Loading

Forthcoming Events