Navy takes over IMD building in naval base in Kochi

The Indian Navy on Wednesday took possession of an unused, vacant Cyclone Detection Radar building of the Met department, to be used for providing daily meteorological information and forecast to users across the navy including ships.

The building, inside the naval base, was equipped with S-band cyclone detection radar and had been used by India Meteorological Department from 1987-2017 to provide weather support for civil aviation at the old Kochi Airport.

However, in 2017, IMD commenced operating a new Doppler Weather Radar (DWR) at Mundamveli here as the S-band radar had become obsolete, following which the building has been lying vacant and unused, a Defence release said.

Based on a request by the Navy, IMD has agreed to hand over the building permanently for meteorological purposes and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the two on Wednesday, marking its handing over to the Navy.

Rear Admiral RJ Nadkarni, Chief of Staff, Southern Naval Command (SNC) and D Pradhan, Scientist 'G', Additional Director General of Meteorology (Instruments), IMD, Delhi signed the MoU on behalf of IMD and Navy respectively.

The keys of the building were handed over by Pradhan to Commodore Deepak Kumar, Chief Staff Officer (Operations), SNC in the presence of Commodore Manoj Kumar Singh, Commodore (Naval Oceanology and Meteorology), Naval Headquarters, New Delhi.

The building is set to be utilised by Indian Naval Meteorological Analysis Centre (INMAC), an operational unit set up in 2013 with the mandate to provide daily meteorological information for the navy, the release added.