GUWAHATI, July 30 - The Union Ministry of Earth Sciences should set up a weather research centre in the NE region. The Guwahati-based Borjhar Regional Meteorology Centre (RMC) is serving only as a data collecting centre. Integrated research programme to study the impact of climatic changes in the NE region is the need of the day, said eminent environmental scientists Prof Surya Kanta Sarma and Prof Dulal Chandra Goswami. Both of them also demanded weather stations at the major urban centres of the NE region. They were talking to The Assam Tribune.
Prof Sarma said the geo-physical situation of the NE region is a major factor for climatic changes in this region. He informed that he had raised the demand for setting up a state-of-the-art weather research centre in the region about 15 years back.
Moreover, he said the research programmes undertaken by different institutions should include study on climatic changes in this region. At present, the research programmes undertaken on environment and climatology of the region are very insignificant in number. The number and quality of such programmes should go up, said Prof Sarma.
Prof Goswami said the NE region, which is recognised as one of the most disaster-prone areas of the country, deserves a full-fledged weather/climate research centre urgently. For, the NE region has already been identified as one of the most sensitive areas on the globe from the point of view of climate change, mainly due to its geostrategic location vis-�-vis the Himalayas and its dominant monsoon regime, said Prof Goswami.
We need several weather parameters measuring centres in different parts of Greater Guwahati and its neighbourhood, besides other major urban centres of the NE region as these places are subjected to rapid urbanisation and population growth, said Prof Sarma.