Nirmala Sitharaman counters Tamil Nadu govt's charge over IMD weather prediction
Tamil Nadu government's claim of a delay in issuing warning over rainfall in the state by IMD, Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said the Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) in Chennai is a state-of-the-art facility and it had forecast heavy rains in the southern state well in advance. She said this in response to the charge by Chief Minister M K Stalin that India Meteorological Department (IMD) had failed to issue timely warnings about the extreme rainfall that battered Tuticorin, Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli, and Tenkasi districts.
Attacking the DMK government, Sitharaman sought to know what kind of measures it took when the weather office predicted heavy rainfall.
Addressing reporters on the measures taken by the Centre in the wake of heavy rainfall in south Tamil Nadu, Sitharaman said the RMC in Chennai has three dopplers that keeps issuing updates on weather conditions every three hours.
«It is the state-of-the-art meteorological centre located in Chennai. Forecasts (by this center) are normally done on a dynamic way, that is every five days in advance.
Every day there is a forecast but it warns you five days in advance about adverse weather conditions,» she said.
For the extreme rainfall that occurred on December 17, she said, an alert was issued by the RMC on December 12 itself.
«Either the officials (concerned) have not briefed the Chief Minister properly or they have received the forecast but did not act on it.
