Though the civic authorities miserably failed to prevent the recurrent urban flooding in the capital city, the Thiruvananthapurm Corporation found that the failure of the Centre was the prime reason for the recent floods in the capital.
A pressnote issued by the office of the Mayor here on Wednesday, said the extreme rainfall events that occurred in the capital city recently created two flash floods, disrupting normal life and creating heavy waterlogging in the low-lying areas of the city.
Though the vagaries of climate change have been hitting Kerala hardly of late, the India Meteorological Department (IMD), which was bound to issue the rainfall alert early, failed to issue a timely alert, the pressnote noted. Despite the repeated requests by the State, the Centre has yet to set up an advanced weather forecasting system in the State.
The Centre which has been nurturing a hostile attitude towards Kerala in issues ranging from ration to railways, continues to turn a blind eye to the demands of Kerala, including in the case of weather warning, the Corporation said. The old radar set up at Kochi had not been working properly often, and it is a system that does not provide data in the digital format used in decision support systems. Though a radar is available in the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), it is not available for the service of the State all the time, the Corporation said.
Though the State has been demanding doplar radars from the Centre since 2013, the Centre has not granted the advanced radars to the State. The Corporation Council meeting held on Wednesday urged the Centre to take steps to set up advanced weather forecasting systems in the capital to issue timely alerts to the State to avoid flooding. The United Democratic Front (UDF) members boycotted the discussion on flooding in the council meeting, while the BJP members said the failure to remove encroachments was the main reason for recurrent flooding in the capital.
