Doppler Radar of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) Hyderabad Center in Begumpet. | Photo Credit: Serish Nanisetti
The expansion between the Indian Center of the Meteorological Department (IMD) Hyderabad and more “populations” from all over Telangana focused on a greater national question: should publicly funded weather data be freely accessible or limited in the interest of responsible communication?
The problem broke out when the independent weather communicator T. Balaji, known as “Telangana Weatherman”, who commands great social media monitoring for his hyperlocual prediction, was published on “Hyderabad Doppler, a key tool for colliding and storms. It is an exception to the Hyderabad.
Later, when he spoke to Hindu, he said that Doppler’s radar data was made available to the public shortly after his tweet.
He added in a detailed paper that while the restriction would not affect its forecasts generated by private subscriptions and paid tools, lack of access would affect emergency control rooms and public ability to make informed decisions during extreme weather events.
However, IMD Hyderabad Center officials pushed back and stated that the restrictions were not new and have been in place for some time to prevent the abuse of technical data. The IMD scientist confirmed that the radar is functional and the data is available to authorized agencies. “When people without expertise incorrectly interpret radar data and share alarming contributions on social media, they create panic. Ministers and government officials will start calling us. The final blame falls on our shoulders,” the official said.
The scientist mentioned a recent post, where the weather over Telangana was compared with a “pressure cooker” and called it an example of how unnecessary language can cause unnecessary fear. “That’s why we protected it with a slogan,” the official said, adding that the change was aimed at preventing false alarms, not the silence of real predictions.
Technical fault
IMD Hyderabad Head K. Nagaratn offered a slightly different explanation. She attributed a lack of access to a technical defect. “It is a BSNL problem. We have registered a complaint. Our internal approach is intact, but others may not have radar access due to the connection problem,” she said.
She also added that the public does not need radar data anyway. “They need predictions and we give them regularly. That should be enough.”
Asked whether the TELANGANA government authorities, such as a control room for catastrophe management or GHMC, said that these authorities were probably granted access through internal channels, but the specifics would be known to the troops concerned.
“In fact, the agency for reaction to catastrophe in Hyderabad and the protection of asset (HYDRAA) has established a control room in the IMD Hyderabad, while there was staff who receive the same information as we do,” she said.
Published – 8 August 2025 20:13
