Home Minister Shri Amit Shah ji, Member of Parliament Shri Nishikant Dubey ji, Home Secretary, Chief of Army Staff, Chief of Air Staff, DGP Jharkhand, DG NDRF, DG ITBP, staff from local administration, all the brave soldiers connected with us, Commandos, Police personnel, and all other companions!

Namaskar!

For three days in a row you have worked round the clock and have successfully accomplished a difficult rescue operation that saved the lives of several countrymen. The whole country has appreciated your valour. I also consider it to be the grace of Baba Baidyanath ji. However, we are extremely grief-stricken for we could not save the lives of some. Several companions have also been injured. We all have our deepest condolences with the families of the victims. I wish all the injured a speedy recovery.

Friends,

Whoever had seen this operation on TV and other platforms was anguished and upset about the incident. You were all at the spot. We know how difficult those circumstances must have been for you. But the country is proud that it has such a skilled force in the form of our Army, Air Force, NDRF jawans, ITBP personnel and police personnel, who have the capacity to bring the countrymen out of every crisis safely. We have learnt several lessons from this crisis as well as this rescue mission. Your experiences are going to be very useful in the future. I am also looking forward to talking to you all because I was constantly in touch with this operation from a distance and was taking stock of everything. But today it is necessary for me to know all these things directly from you. Let us go to the brave-hearts of NDRF first, but I wish to say one thing; NDRF has created an identity of its own and has done that through its hard work, effort and might. And wherever it is posted within India, NDRF deserves to be congratulated for its hard work and identity.

It's great that you all have worked in a swift, coordinated and planned manner. And I clearly remember that the very first day, in the evening, we were informed that it was difficult to take the helicopter because the vibration of the helicopter and the wind emanating from it could move the wires, and the people might start falling out of the trolley. So that was also a matter of concern and the discussion regarding the same went on throughout the night. But in spite of all this, I could see the coordination with which you all have worked and I believe that the response time is a very important factor in such crises. Your swiftness decides the success or failure of such operations. People have a lot of faith in the uniform. Whenever people in distress see you they feel relieved. The NDRF uniform is now familiar. And people already were familiar with you. So they feel that they are safe; their lives will be saved. A new hope awakens in them. Just your presence evokes a ray of hope in them. It is very important to take special care of senior citizens and children in such times and I am glad that you have given this matter a lot of priority in your planning and process of operation and have done it very well. Your training is extremely commendable! We have seen how wonderful your training is in this field and how brave you are! And you are ready to sacrifice your life for this cause. We can see that with every experience you are evolving yourself. It is our commitment to equip all the rescue teams including NDRF with modern science and modern equipment. The entire operation has been synonymous with sensitivity, understanding and courage. I congratulate every person who survived this crisis because they acted calmly even after such a major crisis. I was told that people spent many hours hanging; they could not sleep all night. Yet they did not lose their patience and courage throughout this operation and it is indeed a very big deal! If all the entrapped people had given up courage, then we might not have got these results despite deploying so many soldiers. So the courage of those stranded citizens is also of great importance. You took care of yourself, instilled courage in the people and the rest was done by our rescue personnel. And I am glad that the citizens of that area provided all the possible help to all of you by working round the clock, day in and day out with whatever resources and understanding they had of the situation. The dedication of these local people was immense! I also wish to congratulate all those people. See, this crisis has once again proved that whenever there is any crisis in the country, we all come together to fight that and bring us out of that crisis. Everyone's efforts have played a huge role in this crisis as well. I would also appreciate the local people of Baba Dham as they have provided all the assistance. Once again I offer my heartfelt condolences to the affected families. I wish all the injured a speedy recovery. And I have a request for those of you who were involved in this operation. Operations in events of floods or rains are almost very frequent but incidents like this one are very rare. So, kindly document every experience you have gained during this operation.

In a way, you can prepare a manual since all our forces have worked in it. There should be documentation of everything so that in future we can use it as a part of the training and understand the kind of challenges faced at such times and what exactly to do in order to handle these challenges. It is because when they came to me in the evening on the very first day saying - 'sir it's difficult to take a helicopter because those wires would not be able to withstand so much vibration'. So, I too was worried about how to find a solution to that problem. That is, you are aware of each of the stages; you have experienced it. The sooner we document it properly, the better we can make all our systems a part of further training. And we can use it every time as a case study because we have to constantly keep ourselves updated. Moreover, a committee has been formed and the state government will inquire about the ropeway accident. But we as an institution need to develop these systems throughout the country. I once again thank you very much for your valour, effort and the compassion with which you have worked towards the people. Thank you all so very much!

DISCLAIMER: This is the approximate translation of PM’s speech. Original speech was delivered in Hindi.

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DS/ST/IG