The Bihar Floods: Example of use of ICT and the way forward By: Dipendra manocha Coordinator Developing Countries DAISY Consortium

The floods in the State of Bihar in India in the year 2008 was a disaster of a magnitude which the state had faced never before. On one hand it caught the whole population and disaster management system off guard and on the other hand, it also brought out a new way of coordination for relief services and possibilities of disaster warning.

With in a matter of few days a new system of SMS based coordination of relief was put in place making use of huge mobile phone subscribership. The idea was floated and refined on ICT solution exchange mailing list and was implemented by Intel India office. The application being simple to use and extremely effective in its outreach, the system is now being adopted for various purposes.

This brings out requirement of further development of this idea and make it adaptable for all persons including persons with disabilities and need for standardisation of messaging services for disaster warning and relief works. DAISY has lot to contribute to this further development of the concept of messaging which is readable and perceivable by every one including people who cannot hear and also those who cannot read normal print. Requirement is for standardisation of the format of such messaging so that all carriers , service providers and handset manufacturers could support such messaging services.