APSDRF earns national recognition in CSSR competitions

Vijayawada: The Andhra Pradesh State Disaster Response Force (APSDRF) earned national recognition by showcasing its excellence in the prestigious Collapsed Structure Search and Rescue (CSSR) competitions.

At the national-level CSSR event held on March 9 and 10 in Ghaziabad, near New Delhi, under the aegis of the 8th Battalion of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), teams from eight states — Bihar, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh — participated. The APSDRF team secured third place (second runner-up), demonstrating commendable skill and coordination. The winning APSDRF team was awarded a trophy along with a cash prize of Rs 50,000 by Union minister of state for home affairs Nityanand Rai and NDRF director general Piyush Anand.

Earlier, the APSDRF team had also proved its mettle at the regional-level CSSR competitions held from February 23 to 27, where it finished as runner-up among teams from southern states. Congratulating the team, director general of police Harish Kumar Gupta presented a cash incentive of Rs 75,000 at a felicitation ceremony held at the Police Headquarters in Mangalagiri on Thursday. Highlighting the force’s performance during the Budameru floods in 2024, the DGP said the coalition government had allocated Rs 2 crore for enhancing APSDRF’s infrastructure.