ROURKELA: What may come as a surprise to many, the rain-fed Sundargarh district is going ahead with its agriculture plans without real-time online rainfall data available for the Agriculture, Horticulture, Soil Conservation and Irrigation departments.
At a time when the country is witnessing an IT revolution, these key departments have to manually collect rainfall information from the District Emergency office as those do not have direct access to the Odisha Rainfall Monitoring System (ORMS). The result is often erratic and disastrous.
Surprisingly, rainfall data regarding the district for 2014 were made available four days back after it was brought to the notice of District Informatics Officer K Hembram.
Investigation revealed that the rainfall data, which should be accessible to all, was closed for viewing after 2012. It was exclusively accessed by the District Emergency office.
In fact, the ORMS website itself is in a mess. The portal is full of errors and vital data relating to previous years are not available. Hembram said no data was lost and all information would be restored from the server.
Requesting anonymity, a senior officer of the district Agriculture department said real-time rainfall data are crucial to determine farming activities.
Moreover, present and past rainfall data can help to know possibilities of deficit or surplus rainfall, distribution pattern, scattered and sporadic rainfall.
Though officials of Irrigation, Horticulture, Agriculture and Soil Conservation departments privately complain about the issue, they are unwilling to come out in the open. Sources said rain gauges containing funnels and measuring cylinders have been put up at all 17 block offices and head clerks have been assigned to measure rainfall daily.
District Emergency Officer Sumita Singh said rainfall data are supplied to the office of Special Relief Commissioner every day by 11 am. However, she had no answer when asked why the website was locked for officials of other departments concerned.
Sundargarh Collector Bhupendra Singh Poonia claimed that agriculture planning is made at micro level and officials of administrative wings concerned are updated with rainfall data through block offices. The Collector said the issues with the ORMS website would be resolved and information made accessible to all.
Surprisingly, the ORMS website does not mention the rainfall figures of Rourkela, Rajgangpur, Sundargarh and Birmitrapur municipality limits in the district.