Union Home Minister Amit Shah will hold a high-level meeting on Thursday evening to review the preparedness to deal with flood situations in the country during the monsoon.
The meeting is scheduled at 4 pm in the Ministry of Home Affairs office.
This comes in the wake of monsoon making onset in Kerala three days ahead of its time on June 1, according to the IMD. It set in on May 29. Isolated heavy rainfall was also witnessed in parts of Tamil Nadu, Bihar and sub-Himalayan West Bengal.
Officials, privy to the development, toldthat it is an annual review meeting in which the Home Minister takes stock of preparedness and gives directions to strengthen coordination between central and state agencies to have a permanent system for forecasting floods and the rise in water levels in major catchment zones and areas.
The Home Minister took a similar meeting last year on June 15.
Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Minister Gajendra Shekhawat, Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla, Director General of India Meteorological Department, Director General National Disaster Response Force, and DG Central Water Commission among other officials concerned will be participating in the meeting.
The meeting is expected to be held in Hybrid mode.
The Union Home Minister is expected to advise the Jal Shakti Ministry to work out a mechanism for desilting of large dams, which will help in increasing dam storage capacity and flood control.
The Union Minister may also direct the NDRF to hold meetings with the heads of the State Disaster Response Forces of flood-prone states.
A large part of India is prone to floods in which Ganga and Brahmaputra are the main flood basins and Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal are the most flood-prone states.
( With inputs from ANI )
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