New Delhi: Government of India hosted the first “BIMSTEC Annual Disaster Management Exercise” from 10th to 13thOctober, 2017 in the National Capital Region, India. The main focus of BIMSTEC-DMEx 2017 was to strengthen the inter-governmental coordination efforts, create synergy and synchronize efforts to institutionalize regional cooperation on disaster response among the member countries. National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) under Union Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) is dealing with BIMSTEC as a nodal agency to provide training to the forecasters from BIMSTEC countries for disaster management. India Meteorological Department (IMD) is acting as World Meteorological Organization (WMO)’s Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre for WMO/ESCAP Panel countries which include BIMSTEC countries like Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Maldives. It provides the tropical cyclone advisories to these countries. Also, IMD acts as a Regional Centre under WMO’s Severe Weather Forecasting Demonstration Project (SWFDP) – Bay of Bengal and provides guidance to Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan on heavy rainfall, strong wind, storm surge and sea waves.
Currently, India is having separate bilateral arrangements for sharing of hydrological data between co-basin countries like Nepal, Bhutan & Bangladesh especially during flood season amongst BIMSTEC nations. Also, the Hydro meteorological data & trend of last 72 hrs Water Level along with flood forecasts of various river basins in India is uploaded in public domain on Central Water Commission (CWC)’s Flood Forecasting for near real time data dissemination especially during Monsoon season (May-Dec).
This was stated by the Minister of State for Home Affairs, Shri Kiren Rijiju in written reply to a question by Shrimati Ambika Soni and Dr. T. Subbarami Reddy in the Rajya Sabha today.
