CHENNAI: In order to receive timely warnings before a disaster strikes, the Tamil Nadu government has decided to establish an advanced early warning system with supercomputers, a system of weather balloons, two weather radars, 100 automatic weather stations, 400 automatic rain gauges and 11 automatic water level instruments.
For this, an allocation of Rs 10 crore has been made in the Budget. The decision was taken in view of sudden flooding in Chennai last November when there was no red alert issued from the regional meteorological centre. The city had received 21 cm of rainfall in 24 hours.
"The sudden floods which happened in Chennai recently have underscored the need to upgrade the Disaster Early Warning Systems to accurately predict the weather," said Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, Minister for Finance and Human Resources management, in his Budget speech on Friday.
The government has also formed an Advisory Committee to make suitable recommendations to prevent damages caused by floods in Chennai. Based on the recommendations of this committee, the Chief Minister had announced that the first phase of flood prevention works will be taken up at a cost of Rs 1,000 crore. An amount of Rs 500 crore has been allocated in this year's Budget for this purpose.