The Committee on Public Accounts (COPA Committee) has recently asked the officials of the Department of Meteorology regarding the existing reports of not making accurate predictions about the current drought situation.
Here, the Director General said that he was informed about this during the Monsoon Talk held last April with the Irrigation Department, Mahaweli Authority and related government institutions and other regional countries.
But the committee pointed out that the relevant institutions did not provide them with the relevant information, so until the situation is resolved through an act, a cabinet decision or a joint mechanism should be prepared with all the relevant institutions.
It was also instructed to report to the COPA committee in this regard within a month.
It was also asked whether there is any data on the progress of the published predictions.
But it was revealed that there is no such program, and he advised to prepare a formal program quickly and report within a month, considering the situation in other countries of the world.
While 453 rain gauges were installed, 73 of them were inactive.
Also, although 122 automatic rain gauges were installed in 2018, special attention was paid to the fact that 70 are currently not working due to issues such as batteries not working.
He informed the department to present a program within a month to install these rain gauges properly and get the data immediately.
