The Telangana State Development Planning Society (TSDPS) of the Planning Department would soon come out with threshold temperatures for each district to indicate the precise temperature beyond which it would cause harm to people, especially during heat waves.
Chief Executive Officer Shaik Meera said the agency has been working on a model based on climate data gathered in the last one decade and based on mortality and morbidity rates. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) declares a heat wave when the average mean temperature is 42 degree Celsius across Telangana.
Addressing a workshop on ‘Extreme weather events with reference to heat wave over TS’ organised in association with TS Disaster Response & Fire Services Department, Indian Meteorological Society and the IMD, Mr. Meera said there has been a 1.5 degree Celsius rise in temperatures across the State in the last four years.
The TSDPS has installed neon-lit boards indicating temperatures at all the district headquarters, he said and called upon the officials concerned to ensure that the publicity material, including posters on precautions to be taken during a heat wave, be prominently displayed at all the vantage points in villages as vulnerable sections include daily labourers, children and the aged.
Effective measures like heat advisory, sufficient water supply, IV fluids and ORS supply has brought down the number of deaths to just eight last year. The TSDPS with 924 Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) to get real-time data on rainfall, temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction is sharing information with the traffic police, the GHMC, the Agriculture Department and others to help them issue alerts on time.
The Society has also taken up climate change studies at the district-level in Telangana with focus on agriculture and water in association with P.P. Majumdar of Indian Institute of Science (Bengaluru), IIT-Hyderabad, BITS-Hyderabad, JNTU and others. It has also implemented an urban flooding model for Hyderabad city by installing 120 more AWS in addition to the already existing 34 in association with Kapil Gupta of IIT-Mumbai, Mr. Meera said.
The National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) is also coming out with a hot weather outlook for the entire country, which indicates heat waves in different regions, and this would be put on Bhuvan platform, said its scientist M.V. Ramana.
Special Chief Secretary Rajeshwar Tiwari said with more districts and decentralised administration, Telangana was well poised to reach people quicker and was ready to tackle any emergency. The aim should be towards zero heat mortality, reduced heat-related illnesses and heat wave risk reduction.
Professor at IISC Majumdar, TS Disaster Response & Fire Services DG M. Gopi Krishna, IMD-Hyderabad Director Y.K. Reddy, his colleague K. Naga Ratna, Prof. Jayashankar Telangana State Agriculture University’s G. Srinivas and Unicef’s Mathew K. Koshy also spoke. A short film on heat wave awareness was also released on the occasion.
