Heatwave bulletins every day

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) on Friday said the weather office will provide special heat bulletins every morning, besides the regular five-day forecasts, to help people reschedule their work timings to avoid peak heat impact.

The decision was announced by the NDMA during a meeting held with senior state officials through video conferencing to review the preparedness and mitigation measures in view of the recent incidents of thunderstorm and lightning. Preparedness measures relating to these hazards were also assessed.

All the 17 heatwave-prone states will now get special heatwave bulletins at 7:30 hours beside the regular five-day forecasts by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), an official statement said.

In the meeting, NDMA member R K Jain asked the states to run extensive public awareness campaigns in local languages to educate people about the simple ways of mitigating the impact of heatwaves and lightning. He also asked the states to work on developing thresholds at local levels and ensure wider dissemination of early warnings.

A detailed review of the preparedness of the states in terms of having Heat Action Plans up to the district level, providing shelters, drinking water, rescheduling work timings to avoid peak heat impact for labourers and medical treatment was carried out.

“The NDMA underlined the importance of training all stakeholders to build local capacities and ensure a better response in an emergency. It also asked the states to share a report on the activities carried out by them so that best practices followed by one State can be suitably adapted by others,” the statement said.

The NDMA has been running an all-out awareness campaign on social media on the do’s and don’ts of heatwave, thunderstorms and lightning.

The NDMA's ‘Beat The Heat India’ campaign is being widely used and publicised by various other stakeholders.