The Brihanmumbai Municipal orporation’s (BMC) claims that the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) did not provide them with precise weather warnings and also the exact date of arrival of the monsoon in the city, which led to mismanagement in the preparedness for the monsoon by the civic body has been refuted by the IMD. It said that the prediction has been barely off the mark as it had correctly predicted the date of arrival of monsoon in the city.
According to the BMC, the Met department had given the wrong date of monsoon arrival, so the actual arrival of the monsoon on June 8 caught the BMC unawares.
The Met department, however, said that there may have been minor miscommunications between their office and the civic body, but by and large, the IMD has been getting accurate forecasts this season.
“In a meeting last month, the BMC had asked us when the monsoon was to be expected. We had explained that the monsoon covers the whole of Maharashtra between June 10 and June 15. We were then asked the date of its arrival in the city, to which we had replied that it arrives in Mumbai 7-9 days after hitting Kerala,” said N.Y. Apte, deputy director general of IMD, Mumbai.
According to the IMD, the BMC chose to consider the last possible date for the arrival of monsoon in the city. “We had not given a particular date of arrival of the monsoon in the start. But, as the monsoon hit the other parts of the state, we had maintained that the monsoon will hit the city around the normal date of June 10,” said an official from IMD, Pune.
“On June 16, we had forecast very heavy to extremely heavy rainfall. The BMC sent out a warning to people to stay at home late in the evening, because of which it was assumed that the
warning is for the next day,” said another official from IMD, Mumbai.