The Centre on Monday announced that it will conduct civil defence preparedness drills, including testing air raid warning sirens, training on civil defence protocols and crash blackout measures, as the government firmed up its response to Pakistan in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack.
The comprehensive drills, scheduled for Wednesday, were ordered across the 244 civil defence districts. A drill at this scale has not been conducted in the country since 1971, when India defeated Pakistan in a war that led to the creation of Bangladesh.
“Government of India has decided to organise civil defence exercise and rehearsal across the 244 categorised civil defence districts of the country on 07.05.2025. The conduct of the exercise is planned up to the village level. This exercise aims to assess and enhance the readiness of civil defence mechanisms across all states and Union territories,” said a letter sent to the chief secretaries of all states and administrators of Union territories seen by HT, dated May 5.
Union home secretary Govind Mohan will hold a meeting on the drills on Tuesday, according to a second letter seen by HT. The meeting will be attended by the chief secretaries of all states and UTs, officials of the National Disaster Management Authority, National Disaster Response Force, Railways and air defence, the letter said. The ministry had previously written to all states on the drills on May 2.
“In the civil defence exercise, active participation of the district controller, various district authorities, civil defence wardens/volunteers, home guard (active/reservists volunteers), NCC, NSS, NYKS, college/school students is envisaged. The said civil defence exercise is aimed to assess the operational efficacy and operational coordination of various civil defence measures,” the letter added.
Measures during the drill will include operationalisation of hotline/radio communication links with the Indian Air Force, testing the functionality of control rooms and shadow control rooms, training of civilians and students on the civil defence aspects to protect themselves in the event of hostile attack, provision of crash blackout measures, provision for early camouflaging of vital plants or installations, verifying the activation and response of civil defence services, including warden services, firefighting, rescue operations, and depot management, assessing the implementation of crash blackout measures and evaluating the preparedness of evacuation plans and their execution.
The directorate general of civil defence (DGCD) and the states or UTs were also asked, an officer added, to “train the civilians, students on the civil defence aspects to protect themselves in the event of a hostile attack” and “create provisions for early camouflaging of vital plants and installations”.
“Additionally, evacuation plans are to be updated and rehearsed to ensure swift and coordinated responses during emergencies,” the people cited above said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Delhi Fire Services (DFS) official said: “DFS can help to train individuals on how to act in different war-type situations…We will comply with all orders by MHA and help in trainings when called.”
Tensions simmering between India and Pakistan since the April 22 terror attack threaten to reach a flashpoint as the neighbouring army stepped up hostilities along the Line of Control (LoC) and international border in Jammu and Kashmir for the 11th straight day.
In Delhi, national security adviser Ajit Doval and defence secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh met Prime Minister Narendra Modi separately and briefed him on the latest security developments after the terror strike that killed 26 people and sparked the worst crisis between the nuclear-armed neighbours since the 2019 Pulwama terror attack, officials aware of developments said, requesting anonymity.
Over the weekend, the chief of the air staff, Air Chief Marshal AP Singh, and navy chief Admiral Dinesh K Tripathi, briefed Modi on the operational readiness of the two services and the current security dynamics in the region.
The meetings were significant as the PM has granted the military a free hand to respond forcefully to the Pahalgam terror attack. Separately, a 30-minute blackout rehearsal was conducted at the Ferozepur Cantonment area in Punjab on Sunday evening. The blackout drill was carried out at the border town from 9 pm to 9:30 pm on Sunday, officials said.
According to data accessed by HT, there are currently 538,000 civil defence volunteers in the country; but officials familiar with training exercises carried out over the years said this number can go up by several hundreds of thousands within a few days. “The aim of civil defence volunteers, who work with the police, fire services, district administration, air force, army, hospitals, railways and other authorities during hostilities is to save lives, minimise damage to property, maintain continuity of production and essential services, keep the morale of public high and help in evacuations,” the second officer said.
Civil defence, according to officials, gained significance primarily because of Chinese aggression in November 1962, and the Indo-Pakistan war in 1965 – in both cases, several cities were subjected to enemy air attacks. By 1971, when Pakistan again attacked India, the civil defence set-up was considerably equipped, said a third officer, requesting anonymity. “It was actually the last time such drills were conducted in multiple states in India,” he added.
“These drills are basically to keep everyone ready in case Pakistan tries something,” said the third officer.
The police and district administration are playing a key role in the drills, said the first officer cited above.
“The duties of police particularly are the same both in war and peace time but with a variation in magnitude. The peacetime duties are protection of life and property, prevention and detection of crime, traffic control and maintenance of law and orders. War only increases their duty from coordinating with Civil Defence to guide the public, know places of danger, diversion of traffic from congested roads, directing people to take shelter, and assisting during raids so they are usually part of such drills,” he said.
Last week, a group of heavily armed terrorists emerged from the woods and targeted tourists on the Baisaran grassland near Pahalgam. Twenty-six people, 25 of them tourists and 24, Hindu were killed in the attack that was reminiscent of the heyday of terrorism in the 1990s and 2000s and the worst to rock the country since the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba’s proxy, The Resistance Front (TRF), claimed responsibility for the attack that coincided with US vice president JD Vance’s visit to India. New Delhi has since identified three Pakistani terrorists and tracked their digital footprints to underline Islamabad’s role in the attack.