Maharashtra: Real-time data system installed in Ratnagiri for flood alerts, info on landslides

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After the rain fury claimed lives of over 20 people in Ratnagiri in July last year, the district administration has installed a Real-Time Data Acquisition (RTDA) System at various places for effective communication about flooding and landslides, a senior official said. Ratnagiri is a coastal district in Maharashtra, located over 300 km from the state capital Mumbai, and witnesses heavy rainfall during the monsoon season.

Last year, Chiplun town in Ratnagiri was among the worst-hit by heavy rains. Among the over 20 deceased in the district included eight COVID-19 patients who had died in a hospital after flood waters entered the premises. The human casualties and financial losses prompted the district administration to put up a system, for data collection, analysis and issuing alerts, which can work when traditional communication channels fail, Ratnagiri Collector Dr B N Patil told PTI.

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"The RTDA system has a network in all heavy rain-prone villages, towns and locations in the district. It will help us to get real-time data about the rainfall and how it is resulting in the water level rise. It will improve our response time for evacuation and issuing alerts to villagers to shift to safer locations," he said. In such situations, if people can move along with their belongings and cattle, it will save them from financial losses also, he said.

"Thus, this system will be of double benefit, in terms of saving human lives and keeping the financial losses at minimum," he said. The district collectorate has identified 406 villages and locations where the system has been installed. Instructions can be passed on to villagers with the help of loudspeakers, the official said. "It is a two-way communication system. If a village is affected due to a landslide, local authorities can use the system to communicate with us. It has been observed that mobile towers lose connection during such incidents. The RTDA system operates parallelly and thus, can be used for communicating about local incidents," he said.

The collector also said the system can operate without power supply for three days. "It is a plus point for us, as Ratnagiri is a hilly district where mobile network and electricity supply can easily get snapped during such incidents. The RTDA system would play a crucial role in such a situation," he said. Earlier, a similar system was deployed in the basin of the Krishna and Bhima rivers in western Maharashtra, but it was chiefly used for flood alerts.

The system deployed in Ratnagiri is a couple of steps advanced, Patil said. Notably, between July 23 and 25 last year, more than 110 people had died in Raigad, Ratnagiri, Satara and Kolhapur districts of Maharashtra in rain-related incidents.

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