New Delhi, June 2 (Agency) Home Minister Amit Shah held a high level meeting in Delhi on Thursday and reviewed the overall preparedness to deal with floods in the coming Monsoon. He also took stock of the preparations made by NDRF and NDMA in the flood affected areas, and reviewed the long-term measures to formulate a comprehensive policy to mitigate the flood-related problems of the country. At a high level meeting in Delhi today, several decisions were taken to minimize the loss of life and property during floods. The Home Minister directed officials to continuously strengthen the coordination between the Central and State level agencies by establishing a permanent system to provide detailed prediction up to the local level of flood and water level rise in the major catchment areas of the country. He directed that during the current flood season, the current and forecasted river levels should be monitored every hour and during floods all concerned stakeholders should take appropriate measures like- embankments, evacuations, temporary shelters etc.
He directed the NDRF to prepare SOPs with the States for issuing rain early warnings at the local, municipal and state levels in areas with heavy rainfall. The Home Minister advised specialized institutions like the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) and Central Water Commission (CWC) to continue to upgrade their technologies for more accurate weather and flood forecasting. He also directed for timely dissemination of warnings about lightning to the public through SMS, TV, FM Radio and other mediums. The NDRF and SDRF have been asked to make arrangements to convey lightning warnings to District Collectors and Panchayats so that there is minimum loss of life and property. Officials were directed to give maximum publicity to various mobile apps related to weather forecast like ‘UMANG’, ‘Rain Alarm’ and ‘Damini’ developed by IMD so that their benefits reach the target population. Shri Shah also directed to make ‘Damini’ app available in all local languages of the country. The ‘Damini’ app gives a lightning warning three hours in advance which can help in minimizing the loss of life and property.
Shah directed the Ministry of Jal Shakti and the CWC to take timely action in advance to further strengthen the institutional arrangements at the State level and at the dam level under the provisions of the Dam Safety Act, 2021 to further reduce water level and floods and reduce the loss of life and property. CWC, IMD and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have started monitoring the water level and flood situation in the rivers and sending the regular reports to Ministry of Home Affairs. Director General of IMD and Chairman of CWC made presentations in the meeting and informed about steps improving weather and flood forecasting techniques and flood control measures. Director General of NDRF informed that all necessary preparations have been completed to deal with floods during the coming monsoon. He said that 67 teams of NDRF have been requisitioned by the States and 14 teams have been deployed so far. A large area in India is flood prone with Ganga and Brahmaputra being the main flood basins and Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal being the most flood prone States. Water Resources Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai, Home, and other officials were present at the meeting.