The 28th National Conference on Pulmonary Diseases (NAPCON 2026) will host a full-day disaster management workshop, titled Exercise Vayu Suraksha — Strengthening Readiness, Enhancing Response, on 29 October 2026 at a city hotel in Kolkata.
The first-of-its-kind workshop is being organised by serving officers of the Army Medical Corps in collaboration with faculty from the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Bellevue Hospital, New York. Colonel Vikas Marwah, SM, and Colonel Manu Chopra are the principal organisers.
Moving beyond the conventional lecture format, the programme will feature a series of scenario-based simulation exercises closely modelled on real-life incidents. Delegates will be divided into groups upon arrival and will work through three successive disaster scenarios: natural and man-made calamities, including earthquakes, building collapses and crowd crushes; a pandemic-type respiratory pathogen emergency involving surge capacity, oxygen supply and the allocation of scarce resources; and a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive (CBRNE) emergency involving an industrial chemical release accompanied by a fire in an occupied building.
The exercise is designed to be interactive at every stage. Each group will be assigned a specific decision-making problem, deliberate within a defined time frame, and present and defend its response before the faculty. The faculty will subsequently discuss the optimal approach across the pre-hospital, hospital and administrative phases. The day will conclude with a structured debriefing and assessment.
“Most hospitals have a disaster plan in a binder. Very few have ever run one,” said Col Vikas Marwah, SM, principal organiser of the workshop and Senior Advisor, Department of Pulmonology, at Army Hospital (R&R), Delhi, the Army’s apex institute.
A distinguishing feature of the exercise is its participant profile. Chest physicians, emergency physicians and medical officers serving the country’s industrial belt will work together in the same groups. These professional groups ordinarily prepare for disasters in isolation and may encounter one another for the first time during an actual emergency.
The international collaboration is intended to facilitate mutual learning. Dr. Vikramjit Mukherjee and Dr. Deepak Pradhan of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Bellevue Hospital, who led the response to one of the most severe COVID-19 surges recorded anywhere in the world, will contribute alongside Indian faculty members with extensive experience in disaster response in resource-constrained settings.
“Disasters do not respect borders, and neither should the learning,” said Dr. Vikramjit Mukherjee of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Bellevue Hospital, New York.
The faculty comprises Col (Prof) Sanjay Srivastava of the National Disaster Management Authority, who has extensive experience in managing disaster scenarios; Col Vikas Marwah, SM; Col (Dr) Yadu Vir Singh; Lt Col Anurag Mishra; Dr Saurabh Kole; Dr Vikramjit Mukherjee; Dr Deepak Pradhan; and Dr Ansuman Mitra. Dr Mitra’s session will address disaster response teams, community resilience and the management of acute stress in India.
The National Conference on Pulmonary Diseases is the annual national conference of pulmonologists in India, organised by the Indian Chest Society and hosted in a different part of the country each year. The 28th edition will be held in Kolkata from 30 October to 1 November 2026.
