Pre-monsoon showers have arrived in the state and with them come the thunderstorms and lightning. Lighting has already claimed around 30 lives in the past two months in the state.
Bracing to such dangers, Bengaluru will get a unique Lightning Alert, an instrument that will intimate the weather-watchers of storms half-an-hour or forty minutes prior to its arrival.
This is the brainchild of the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC), which will set the instrument up in 10 places in the state.
“This instrument can prove crucial in saving human and animals’ lives, by giving people time to take cover,” said G S Srinivasa Reddy, director, KSNDMC.
Reddy said the instrument will prevent a rise in the death toll this year. “The instrument doesn’t have to be installed separately. It can be attached to a weather reading device and will help intimate officials about the presence of heavy clouds,” Reddy said.
KSNDMC is implementing this task with the help of foreign agencies. “We have had the initial round of talks on the initiative with Earth Networks. The government of Andhra Pradesh has already implemented this with the help of this company. The company has estimated that it would cost Rs 45 lakh a year to get the information about lightning in the state,” he said.
Logistics of the instrument will be taken care of by the agency and transmission of the information will be the key responsibility of the KSNDMC. Reddy said, “The company will take care of the instrument and the reading. The readings must be communicated to the general public by us. Sending the information throughout the state and particularly the select location as quickly as possible is a challenge in front of us now. We are also thinking of developing an App for this purpose.”
“The Earth Networks Company doesn’t have any centre in India so we will face issues if there are any lapses in information. So, we are looking for some other agency based in India which is working in the same sector.”
This project is being solely funded by the KSNDMC too.
This instrument can also give information on heavy rainfall, heavy winds and lightning-prone areas.
