TA&H Minister launch lightning resilient campaign for all North Eastern States
Source: IT News

Imphal, March 13 2021: Under the leadership of N Biren Singh, Manipur has decided to launch community focused disaster risk reduction (DRR) programmes specially for safety against hazards like Lightning, flood, drought , landslides and earthquakes to make Manipur as resilient state - said Mr V Valte, Minister for Tribal Affairs & Hills Areas and Transport while launching online Lightning Resilient Campaign for all North Eastern states including Sikkim.

Speaking on the occasion as Chief Guest on behalf of CM, Manipur, the minister states that As a unique initiative by our dynamic CM, Manipur is going to launch Tribal DRR and Hill Area DRR programme in collaboration with India Meteorological Department ( IMD), Ministry of Earth Science, North Eastern Space Application Center( NESAC) Shillong and Climate Resilient Observing Systems Promotion Council(CROPC) .

These programmes are first of its kind initiative in North Eastern region.

The minister said that in Manipur, since agriculture is the main livelihood, accurate weather based farming shall be very useful .

We are renovating our disaster management systems under the guidance of CM to make it proactive and preventive, not reactive and relief as was done in the past.

The minister informed that Forecasts of Lightning, flood and drought is being launched with SMS service and shall launch special weather service for its citizens before the monsoon 2021 .

Valte informed that our CM has written letter to Union Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan for installation of Doppler Weather Radar at Imphal and Automatic Weather Stations in hills and tribal area for better service.

The minister also invited NESAC - the nodal center of Indian Space Research Organization for satellite driven services to Manipur .

He thanked the organizers CROPC, NESAC and IMD for inviting CM Manipur as Chief Guest.

The minister applauded the work being done by these organisations in reducing deaths due to lightning and other hazards.

Dr M Mohapatra, Director general of India Met Department while speaking from Delhi assured that the demand of Manipur and entire North East shall be met with recent steps in setting up high quality observations systems in the NE region, impact based forecasting and community outreach services.

PP Shrivastav, IAS Retired, Former Advisor to Governer of Manipur applauded the initiatives taken by the state.

Dr PLN Raju, Director of NESAC briefed about the lightning early warning and other services being offered to all 8 states in North East- specially to disaster management, agriculture, water resource , forest environment and climate change departments.

Col Sanjay Srivastava, Chairman CROPC said that there will be no deaths due to lightning as we have the knowledge and proven solutions.

He offered CROPC services to all to prevent such deaths and damages.

Lightning Resilient India Campaign is going to be life changer for the region first by preventing deaths and secondly by climate change adaptation- said Col Sanjay Srivastava.

During the event, it was brought out by Valte In North East we have far flung areas with diverse geography.

Most of tribe stay on hill top which is highly prone to lightning .

In fact, maximum casualty takes place of tribal people.

Therefore, we are going to start tribal DRR that Tribal Disasters Risk Reduction.

Similarly, we are going to start Hill Area Disaster Risk Reduction programme.

He informed that under the leadership of our CM Manipur , Disaster Management is undergoing major change.

Our ACS MH Khan, IAS, is working very hard to improve the disaster management set up in Manipur .

By the effort of our ACS MH Khan Manipur Disaster Management has worked very well during COVID times and is ready to launch new programmes, updated disaster Management plans , new website, EOC and public alert system.

We are committed for our people .Col Srivastava is also helping us and we shall be shortly re-structuring our State Disaster Management Authority.

The minister highlighted the high risk in Manipur due to earthquake Zone 5 and weather hazards and hence he requested for special fund from these ministries for Manipur and NE region for we know that we need to make our schools safe, our farmers safe.

We will request NESAC and CROPC to arrange fund through other schemes and CSR to install lightning warning hooters and lightning arresters in identified hotspots.

We would also like to invite NESAC and IMD to start Flood warning and Drought forecasts for Manipur.

Ashin Johnny OSD Nagaland SDMA, Dr Sarat Kumar Das from Tripura SDMA, representative from Assam SDMA also spoke on the occasion and extended support to the lightning Resilient India Campaign.

Anil Kumar Sinha, IAS Former VC BSDMA, Dr KJ Ramesh, Member National Commission for monitoring Pollution, all relief commissioners of North eastern states ,Bashanta Sharma State Coordinator BJP, Anup Srivastava Senior Consultant NDMA ,NM Prusty, Shafeequr Rahman, State Cordinator NSRMP Manipur and many CSOs and NGOs took part in 2.5 hours event.

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