Kunte blames IMD for unreliable monsoon forecast

“Their meteorological department gave perfect forecasts of when the hurricane was expected a week in advance. This gave the corporation time to prepare by evacuating the city,and taking necessary mitigation measures. If we had a fair warning,we would have fared better,” he pointed out.

“The next week — after failing to predict the onset of the monsoon season — the IMD told us that heavy-to-extremely heavy rainfall is expected on June 16. We had issued warnings to all schools and offices in the city but in the end it was a dry day,” Kunte said.

Refuting the allegations,V K Rajeev,director of IMD’s regional centre in Mumbai,said. “We had sent a fax message and an SMS to BMC,warning them about heavy rainfall. If they are saying that they did not receive it or if they failed to act on it,it is their problem,” Rajeev said.

Recounting the civic body’s disaster management effort on June 9,Mahesh Narvekar,chief of the BMC’s disaster management cell,admitted the corporation was caught off guard as it was following the previous years’ rain patterns. The corporation’s Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the monsoon season are triggered on the basis of IMD’s predictions.

“Generally, monsoons starts around June 15-17. And as it was a Sunday,and there was no warning,we did not issue warnings to our officials. We have ward control rooms and our central disaster control room runs 24X7,” said Narvekar.

“The commissioner has ordered a probe into the water-logging. He has fined one contractor Rs 1 crore rupees and the storm water drains deputy chief engineer has been suspended. An inquiry has been ordered and whomsoever is responsible will be penalised,” he said.