Uprooted trees blocked roads for days after Cyclone Aila brushed past the city. A Telegraph picture

The civic body’s failure to tackle emergencies has prompted the authorities to decentralise the disaster management mechanism up to the neighbourhood level with the involvement of clubs and professionals such as doctors and engineers.

The plan has been finalised at a meeting between mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya and municipal commissioner Alapan Bandyopadhyay and will be placed before the mayoral council for approval.

“We have already decentralised the disaster management mechanism up to the borough level but that is not enough. An emergency calls for instant response and that can be achieved only if para-level groups, NGOs, clubs and professionals such as doctors and engineers can be involved in the disaster management process,” the mayor said.

The residents’ service will be voluntary.

Civic sources said that among the biggest worries of the authorities were the two lakh-odd trees along the roads and in the parks, and waterlogging. Trees that are uprooted in a storm block roads while trash floating in the run-off water during showers block gullypits, causing waterlogging.

“In each locality, a club or an NGO can be designated as emergency warden and armed with pumps, electric saws, spades and axes. The members will be trained in administering first-aid and in the dos and don’ts during a fire,” said municipal commissioner Bandyopadhyay.

“If a tree falls on a road during a storm, the members of the group will rush to the site and try to remove the blockade after sawing off the branches. The group will also be responsible for alerting the civic control room, police and the fire brigade,” the commissioner added.

The civic authorities have already procured over a dozen electric saws, axes and other implements, said an official involved in disaster management. Members of the neighbourhood disaster management teams will organise drills every Sunday.