The Civil Defence will set up two special teams as part of its plan to ensure full preparedness to meet any emergency in future, a spokesman of the department said on Tuesday.
Talking to APP, he said the government had allocated Rs 744 million for implementation of the project. The PC-I of the project had been approved by the Interior Ministry and the funds were expected to be released after the budget in June, the spokesman said.
The plan was initiated on the special directive of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz following the last year's devastating October earthquake, acting Director Civil Defence Muhammad Hanif Khattak said.
The two teams, one at Karachi and the other at Islamabad would be equipped with the latest equipment used in emergencies like earthquake, he said, and added those elaborate units would later have sub-teams in other cities across the country.
Construction of a Civil Defence headquarters building in Islamabad, for which the government had released separate funds, was underway and would be completed by the end of December, the official said.
Hanif said the government had also allotted 80 kanals in Islamabad's H-II sector for constructing a building to house a National Institute of Fire Technology, adding the work on this project would start in June and tender had already floated.
He said civil defence training in all private and government-run educational institutions had now been made compulsory.
A training schedule had been worked. Teachers would receive coaching, starting from July, so as to become master trainers and they would afterwards train students in various aspects of emergency work related to fire, rescue and first aid.
Students completing such training would get 10 additional marks in examinations, in addition to certificates, the official said.