Karnataka has made rapid strides in the field of weather forecasting with the State evolving a hobli-level weather forecasting model, which is said to be the first of its kind in the country.
Disclosing this to presspersons here on Friday on the sidelines of the inauguration of the building that will house the state-of-the-art master control facility of the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre in Bangalore on Friday, centre Director V.S. Prakash said that the weather forecast model had already become operational in the State.
“We are able to prepare the weather forecast reports every 12 hours for three days in advance at the hobli level, and it will go a long way in helping farmers in their agricultural operations,” he said. The model is being calibrated for improving efficiency.
Mr. Prakash pointed out that forewarning would help save lives of humans and cattle, besides helping fishermen plan their day. Even the power sector would benefit by the weather forecast as it would help them plan power supply because if there are rains, then the demand for electricity naturally goes down. Similarly the transport sector also can plan the operations and reduce losses.
He pointed out that a rupee spent on forewarning would help save Rs. 7 to Rs. 10 in terms of losses.
R.S. Deshpande, Director of the Institute of Social and Economic Change and member of the Centre's executive committee, noted that though Orissa and Gujarat also had set up such centres, their focus was on floods and earthquakes as these were their main problems. But Karnataka was the only State to take a holistic approach rather than concentrate only on a few issues with respect to natural disasters, he said.
