Pune: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s scheduled visit to Pune on Thursday to inaugurate an underground Metro corridor has been cancelled amid heavy rain in several districts of Maharashtra. Heavy rains were witnessed in many parts of Maharashtra, including Mumbai, Thane, and Raigardh.
PM Modi was scheduled to inaugurate the underground metro linking Civil Court to Swargate. Later, he was to hold a public rally at the SP College campus, which got wet and waterlogged due to incessant rain. Given the India Meteorological Department’s alert for heavy rains coupled with lightning and thunderstorms, Pune district administration has announced that schools and colleges in Pune city will remain closed on Thursday.
In addition to the underground Metro corridor, Prime Minister Modi was set to inaugurate a high-performance computing system at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) in Pune, aimed at bolstering weather and climate research. The new systems, named ‘Arka’ and ‘Arunika’, are located at IITM and the National Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (NCMRWF) in Noida. These advanced computing systems are expected to greatly improve the accuracy and lead time of predictions for tropical cyclones, heavy rainfall, thunderstorms, hailstorms, heat waves, droughts, and other critical weather events.
Schedules of local train and flight services were also hit due to the rain.