Tuesday, 13 December 2022 | PNS | DEHRADUN
Location specific information will help better disaster management efforts: Sinha
The memorandum of understanding between the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) and the Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority (USDMA) for establishment of weather network stations and real time weather information system to mitigate rain and weather related disasters in the State has been extended by five years.
Disaster Management secretary Ranjeet Kumar Sinha and the State meteorological centre director Bikram Singh signed the MoU at the secretariat on Monday. According to officials, the MoU is an initiative towards establishing cooperation, coordination and assistance before, during and after disasters. Under this agreement the IMD will provide directions and guidelines for selected automatic weather stations, automatic rain gauges, automatic snow gauges and for site selection, installation, testing and operation of compact Doppler radar. The IMD will assist in the final inspection of this entire system to be set up with the help of USDMA. The USDMA will be responsible for maintenance of all this equipment while the data received from the equipment will be sent for processing directly to the IMD server. Along with this, the USDMA will get real time online access to the other weather related equipment installed in Uttarakhand by IMD. Further, as part of the MoU, IMD and USDMA will also encourage cooperation and assistance in the spheres of research and training. Information and experiences will also be exchanged.
Sinha said that Uttarakhand is vulnerable to varied disasters. In recent years, the IMD network has been enhanced in Uttarakhand. He said that the MoU between IMD and USDMA is an example of the cooperative federalism as stated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Though IMD forecasts are considerably accurate, more accuracy is needed in this. We want to take this one step further- we now need location specific information so that the disaster management machinery can be alerted in places where a disaster is likely. With one each radar system working at Mukteshwar and Surkanda, and the third coming up in Lansdowne, the development of radar systems in the State will help in providing location specific information,” said the Disaster Management secretary.
