Jharkhand, which sees over 200 lightning deaths annually, will be the starting point of a national campaign that aims to set up an early warning system to prevent such fatalities.

The effort is being spearheaded by Lightning Resilient India Campaign that was launched jointly in March in New Delhi by Climate Resilient Observing Systems Promotion Council (CROPC), an R&D company, the India Meteorological Department (IMD), IIT-Delhi, and World Vision, a global NGO.

The campaign will hold is first workshop for stakeholders in Ranchi on June 11, the idea being to make operational an early warning system right up to the community level to prevent deaths from lightning, especially during monsoon.

“We will be launching the campaign from Engineer’s Bhavan in Doranda. Though the campaign was initially started in April in coordination with Central University, Jharkhand, the workshop is to coordinate efforts of various stakeholders, including deputy commissioners of all 24 districts and disaster management officials, of the state,” said CROPC chairman Sanjay Srivastava, who was special project officer (disaster management) in Jharkhand till February 2017.

In Jharkhand, 15 districts are in a severely lightning-prone zone and nine districts in a high lightning-prone zone.

“The frequency and intensity of lightning in Jharkhand has increased three times in the last five years. Lightning induced deaths are usually highest in pre and early monsoon (May-July) and during the terminal monsoon (September). The campaign aims to involve all stakeholders and reach out to the public in vulnerable zones. We aim to reduce deaths due to lightning by 80 per cent by 2021,” said Srivastava of the CROPC, which has been set up under a technology business incubation plan of IIT-Delhi.

Srivastava said recent studies in Jharkhand had found that 95 per cent of such deaths occurred in rural areas, and 30 per cent were children. The victims were invariably those who had taken shelter under trees during inclement weather. A large number of livestock is also killed along with damage to infrastructure and appliances.

The campaign’s workshop will be organised in collaboration with the director of IMD Jharkhand, S. Kotal, and senior Birsa Agricultural University scientists Radhey Shyam Sharma and A. Wadood, among others.

“We will promote lightning-related research,” said Srivastava. “We already have Babadham in Deoghar and Birsa Munda Airport in Ranchi as lightning-safe zones. In both places, lightning grids (a network of lightning arresters) were put up in 2017. The same can be replicated in other districts, too.”

He said they would also work towards building lightning-safe schools.

State special secretary (disaster management) Manish Tiwari welcomed the initiative.