Prime minister Narendra Modi In a high-level meeting on Thursday, it reviewed the situation relating to heat wave management and monsoon preparedness and advised the states and union territories to prepare heat action plans at both the state as well as city and district levels. After grueling March and April – with the highest temperatures in more than a century, the prime minister directed officials to take steps to avoid deaths related to heat waves or incidents of fires.
India Meteorological Department warned that Heat wave likely to continue after relief from last few days In the coming days, parts of Maharashtra, Vidarbha, Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha and Delhi. However, officials of the Meteorological Department said that this period of heat will not be as intense as it was in the last two months.
While India saw the warmest March in 122 years, it experienced the third warmest April in the same period. During April, continuous heat wave affected major parts of the country, with maximum temperatures exceeding 45 degree Celsius at many places in West Rajasthan, East Uttar Pradesh, West Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha in Maharashtra. Last month, the monthly average maximum temperature across the country was recorded at 35.30 degrees Celsius, which was 33.94 degrees Celsius above normal.
During the meeting, the IMD and NDMA briefed the PM about the high temperatures in March-May 2022 as well as the Southwest Monsoon across the country. Over the years, as heatwaves have increased in both frequency and intensity, various states have started preparing heat action plans, which are monitored by the NDMA with inputs from the IMD.
The PM has advised that apart from these, ‘Flood Preparedness Plans’ should also be prepared by the states. The NDRF has been advised to develop its deployment plan in the flood-affected states, including sensitizing communities through social media.
PM Modi said that all measures need to be taken to avoid deaths due to heat wave or fire incident and added that our response time to any such incident should be minimal. He stressed that there is a need to conduct regular hospital fire safety audits in view of the rising temperatures.
Officials said the PM worked to reduce the vulnerability of forests in the country’s diverse forest ecosystems against fire hazards, timely detection of potential fires and enhancing the capabilities of forest personnel and institutions to fight fires. talked about the need. and to expedite recovery after a fire incident.
The Prime Minister directed that in view of the upcoming monsoon, there is a need to ensure arrangements for monitoring the quality of drinking water so as to avoid contamination and consequent spread of water borne diseases.
The need for effective coordination between central and state agencies to ensure preparedness of all systems for any eventuality in the wake of heat wave and upcoming monsoon was discussed in the meeting.
‘These heatwaves are not unprecedented. In 2010 it was bad enough. But this year has certainly been the worst since 2010. In the past few years, the temperature globally has been increasing continuously. This increase in temperature has given rise to the frequency of heatwaves – and this trend of repeated heatwaves continues. Though it does not mean that there will be heatwave every year,” said DG IMD Dr. M. Mohapatra told Indian Express,
The meeting was attended by Principal Secretary to Prime Minister, Advisor to Prime Minister, Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Health, Jal Shakti, Member NDMA, Director General of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and India Meteorological Department (IMD) and India Meteorological Department (IMD). ) participated. DG NDRF.