IIIT Hyderabad hosted a one-day discussion meeting on RVS Primer on 9 January to discuss the draft RVS Primer, prepared by NDMA in collaboration with IIIT Hyderabad. Around 20 participants from Academia, Industry and NDMA took part in the meeting for extending help and contributing towards improving Earthquake Safe Housing in India.
Earlier in August 2017 a two-day Discussion Meeting was organized by the National Disaster Management Authority, Government of India, in association with IIIT Hyderabad on Earthquake Safety Assessment of Buildings in India. The technical session of Discussion Meeting closed with a proposal to examine 1% of the building stock in 250 towns (with a population of more than 1,00,000 in Seismic Zones IV and V), once the RVS methodology is finalized. There are about 30,00,000 buildings in these cities, and the exercise would require about a year to complete. To meet this target, it was agreed that a PRIMER on RVS Studies should be prepared quickly and the work was entrusted to IIIT Hyderabad. Accordingly, IIIT Hyderabad has prepared the RVS Primer with the help of Prof. C V R Murty, Dr. Rupen Goswami, Dr. Srinagesh, Dr. Jaswant Arlekar and Mr. Arvind Jaiswal. In continuation, NDMA had consulted few more experts and decided to have a one-day discussion meeting at IIIT Hyderabad, for finalization of RVS Primer. Later, after finalization, wider dissemination of the PRIMER to public shall be done by NDMA through its National Earthquake Safety initiatives.