Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Earth Sciences, Science and Technology and Health and Family Welfare, inaugurated the India Meteorological Department's centre at Leh in Ladakh via video conferencing on Tuesday.
As per an official release, the Union Minister thanked the administration of Ladakh for extending full support and their active cooperation in establishing the Met Centre facility at Leh.
Elaborating on the need for a Met Centre at Leh, Dr Harsh Vardhan said that the Ladakh region has lofty mountains with high slopes and no vegetation and a lot of loose soil and debris making the region vulnerable to various kinds of natural hazards like cloud burst (of 2010), flash floods, avalanches and glacial lake outbursts, among other things.
"To avert losses due to such weather events in future, the Government felt the need to establish a state of the art Meteorological (Met) Centre at Leh in 2020 to strengthen weather-related early warning system in Ladakh. Located at a height of 3500 meters, Meteorological Centre Leh is creating history, as it will be the highest meteorological centre in India," he stated.
He also said that to help the administration and the people of Ladakh, IMD will provide a range of weather forecast services, ranging from short (three days) and medium (twelve days) to extended (one month) period to all the stakeholders on a daily basis for both the districts (Leh and Kargil).
"Apart from district level forecast, IMD will provide a forecast for important tourist places like Nubra, Changthang, Pangong Lake, Zanskar, Kargil, Drass, Dha-Baima (Aryan valley), Khalsi, among other places. Some of the important services to be made available are highway forecast, forecast for mountaineering, trekking, agriculture, flash flood warning, low and high temperatures among others", Dr HardhVardhan explained.
The Minister assured that the government will make every effort to provide the best possible weather services to the administration and the people of Ladakh and make Ladakh safe and secure from the vagaries of weather.
"The Met Center will be a world-class facility for high altitude meteorology and will cater to the various kinds of weather and climate needs of the people and the administration of Ladakh", he stated further.
Radha Krishna Mathur, Lieutenant Governor, Ladakh, and Jamyang Tsering Namgyal, MP Ladakh also joined the event virtually.
( With inputs from ANI )
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