The agreement seeks to put in place a system, whereby both India and Bangladesh will be benefited from the disaster management mechanisms of each other

The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday approved the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and Bangladesh on cooperation in the field of disaster management, resilience and mitigation.

The MoU seeks to put in place a system whereby both India and Bangladesh will benefit from the disaster management mechanisms of each other and it will help in strengthening the areas of preparedness, response and capacity building in the field of disaster management.

The salient features of the MoU include, extending mutual support on the request of either parties at the time of large scale disaster (Natural or human induced) occurring within their respective territories, in the field of relief, response, reconstruction and recovery.

It provides for exchanging relevant information, remote sensing data and other scientific data and sharing experience/best practices of disaster response, recovery, mitigation, capacity building for ensuring resilience, etc.

The MoU extends cooperation in the field of advanced information technology, early warning systems, remote sensing and navigation services and expertise for disaster preparedness, response and mitigation and more towards real time data sharing.

It supports training of officials in the field of disaster management.

The agreement also paves the way for conducting joint disaster management exercises bilaterally between both the countries.

Sharing of standards, latest technologies and tools for creating Disaster Resilient Communities are also part of this MoU.

It also seeks to expand cooperation for exchange publications and materials as textbooks, guidelines in the field of Disaster Management and may conduct joint research activities in the field of disaster management, risk reduction and recovery.