Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government geared up its machinery to tackle the possible heat wave situation during the upcoming summer as the global temperature rising high and last five years (2014-2018) witnessing hottest years,
Presiding over a state level preparedness meeting, here on Wednesday, the chief secretary AP Padhi directed the concerned departments to keep their response mechanism in all readiness to tackle any situation. The meeting decided a slew of measures to deal with the heat wave situation.
The special relief commissioner, Bishnupada Sethi, placed the State Level Heat Action Plan(HAP) 2019 taking into consideration the IMD predictions for current year and the experience of last years. Stating that institutional arrangement has been put in place for daily recording and prediction of heat wave situation, he said for the first time block and district wise temperature reading to done this year. According to him district level preparedness meetings have already been held and emergency rooms have been operationalised.
The Panchayati Raj principal secretary, Deo Ranjan Kumar Singh, said, Pre-summer repair and maintenance of drinking water projects have already been completed and presently all the projects are in running condition”. The Health and Family Welfare department to operationalise a special room in government hospitals for treatment of sun-stroke and heat related diseases while directing the officials to keep all required instruments, ice packs, medicines, fans and air cooling systems n the sun-stroke management rooms of the hospitals.
Energy secretary Hemant Sharma assured that there would be no load shading during the top day and night hours.
The labour welfare department was asked to issue proper guidelines restricting outside working hours. It was decided that the outside working hours would be restricted from 11 AM to 3.30 PM from 1st May to 15th June. The schools would function from 6 AM to 10.30 AM so that students would reach their homes by 11 AM. The Angawadis would also function from 6 to 10 AM and the AWC workers would finish their home visit works by 11 AM.
