New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government plans to train 60,000 civil defence volunteers as part of a pilot project, it has announced on Friday (October 23). The prime minister had in his Independence Day address said civil defence would be strengthened in the coming days.Initially, the roll-out of the project, under the Union ministry of home affairs, would be in 12 states and Union Territories, including Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Delhi, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.The plan is to train 600 ‘Civil Defence Master Trainers’ over a brief three-day session. They will then each impart training to 100 persons. The master trainers will attend a specialised training programme at designated Indian Army training establishments, the government said.The announcement of the pilot called it a “significant step towards strengthening civil-military coordination and institutional preparedness by combining the Indian Army’s operational expertise with the Civil Defence volunteer network”.The announcement does not mention responding to natural disasters as one of the roles for the 60,000 civil defence volunteers. The focus appears to be on “threat awareness” related to wars and other forms of conflict, including “awareness” about nuclear, chemical and biological [attack] risks.Fifty indivuduals from each participating state and Union Territory are “proposed to be trained by the second week of November 2026”, said the Press Information Bureau.The focus areas of the training will be “threat awareness, protection and emergency response and communication and coordination”, said the release.The nature of threats were specified in the official announcement as “modern and hybrid warfare, drone awareness and air-raid threats”.Also read: MHA Directs States and Union Territories to Hold Civil Defence Mock Drills on May 7The protection and emergency response are to be for critical infrastructure protection, fire safety, Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) awareness, casualty management and search and rescue.Emergency communication, cyber hygiene, digital resilience, civil-military coordination and incident command are the final stage of the training.“This cascading mechanism has the potential to extend specialised preparedness skills to 60,000 Civil Defence Volunteers across the 12 participating States/UTs, thereby significantly expanding the reach and impact of the initiative,” the release said.In May 2025, the MHA had directed states and Union territories to hold mock drills to enhance emergency preparedness. While it was unclear what role civil defence ultimately played, the government had asked the civilian population to confine itself indoors amid blackouts as tensions with Pakistan were on the rise in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terrorist attack.The government had asked local government authorities, Civil Defence wardens, Home Guards, National Cadet Corps, National Service Scheme volunteers, Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan members and students from schools and colleges to get involved in the civil defence mock drills.Mock drills featuring blackouts are becoming a regular aspect of governance in India. In summer this year, the Bihar government conducted one such exercise, getting people to stop electricity use in parts of five districts – Patna, Kishanganj, Begusarai, Purnia, Araria and Katihar.Earlier, in 2023, the Union ministry of defence had asked the armed forces to promote the government’s achievements, directing them to create 822 geo-tagged ‘selfie points’ in public places to “showcase good works done in defence”. The aim was to do so in a way that “enables the people to get the feeling of being a part of the initiative”.In India’s immediate neighbourhood, blackouts and militaristic drills are not a norm during peacetime, having been phased out in Bangladesh after the liberation war. Civil defence in the region is mostly focused on disaster readiness rather than war preparedness. The armed forces are relied on for risk mitigation.Nepal’s civilian and armed forces are, however, known to participate in joint exercises and planning for natural disaster mitigation drills. Civil security forces in Sri Lanka do not conduct mock drills with air raids or other attacks in mind.