Stay on top of rains with BMC portal

Want to know whether there will be erratic rainfall or jut a drizzle before stepping out during this monsoon? Or whether a particular spot, say in Bandra, is waterlogged before driving there in your car? Yes, now you can, thanks to a dedicated monsoon website being set up by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).The portal, mumbaimonsoon.com, will help Mumbaikars get real-time critical data on the monsoon, updated every 15 minutes. It will help citizens decide if they should venture out of homes on a particularly rainy day.“Every Mumbaikar needs to know, at some point or the other during the four months of monsoon, how much it has rained, especially in the mornings before leaving home. As a mother, in 2006, when I resided at Saat Rasta, I was always fraught with anxiety over whether or not I should send my child to school, every time it rained,” said Manisha Mhaiskar, additional municipal commissioner, the woman behind the initiative.“There are automated weather stations at 35 places in Mumbai for the last 4-5 years, and the BMC receives data from them in real-time. This will now be available to citizens through the website, who will now be able to find out the intensity of rains at a particular spot. But this is just one application on this website, even high-tide data can be sought,” said Mhaiskar. The site will also provide information on monsoon-related traffic conditions in Mumbai.The civic body has also set up offline facilities for those seeking rains-related information. A toll-free number, 108, is the helpline of the civic body’s disaster management cell, which citizens can use to inform about accidents and mishaps. Also, 10 dedicated lines for the number, 1916, have been set up for lodging all types of complaints related to the BMC.In order to address water-logging problems in Mumbai during monsoon, the BMC has installed rain gauges at 28 locations all over Mumbai to know the exact pattern of rainfall. The data from these stations is transmitted to a central control room every 15 minutes. These stations are calibrated to raise an alarm at pre-fixed rainfall intensity. For instance, there was 10mm rainfall in 15 minutes. This data will be used for warning and evacuation purposes and will be available to citizens. Traffic and BEST diversions during flooding due to monsoon, will also be announced through the portal.