BHUBANESWAR: Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday prodded the central government to install radar systems at Balasore and Sambalpur to monitor weather patterns in real time, a long-standing promise by New Delhi to decrease the coastal state’s vulnerability to adverse weather events.
The central government decided in 2006 to install four Doppler weather radar systems in Odisha. Two such systems were duly installed, one each at Paradip and Gopalpur, but Balasore and Sambalpur still await the systems, the chief minister pointed out in a letter to Union minister for earth sciences Harsh Vardhan.
Referring to an earlier letter written by him to Vardhan on October 17, 2015 in which he sought the Union minister’s personal intervention in the matter, Naveen Patnaik said Doppler radar stations at Sambalpur and Balasore would help authorities in tracking local storms /thunderstorms in the northern and western parts of the state and having access to real-time weather forecasts.
“This would save many lives,” Naveen Patnaik wrote.