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"content": "have already collected money from sources that we are not very convinced that the money is worth to be spent on the El Nino menace. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, you will be surprised to realize that the money will not even be spent for the purpose intended. That is to combat the menace arising from the ElNino weather phenomenon. Times come when our meteorological department itself is to be challenged because of giving us contradicting information about weather forecasts. There are times when we are faced with disasters of heavy rainfall even when the meteorological department has not said anything about it. If this was happening in other developed countries like Europe or America, weather forecasters would have been held responsible for the damages caused to farmers or even to people when false information is given with regard to weather. This is something that is entailed in the Disaster Management Bill, and we need to know how to take care of our disasters once we come across them. I will also give an example of a river called Tennesse in America. This river used to flood in the Appalachian Mountain on the eastern slopes of America, and little was known about what was going to happen by the people living in the lowlands of Alabama. In Alabama, even when it was not expected, floods would come, carrying stones, boulders and rocks, and would flood the whole area; the low lying Alabama State. That is the reason why even cotton farming in the Southern State of Alabama had to shift to the west, because of further introduction and multiplication of the bovver weevil which became a disaster due to unnecessary river floods arising from heavy rainfall on the Appalachian Mountain, along the River Tennessee and then all the way up to Alabama. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, even in our country, what we are facing is sporadic weather forecasting. Sometimes, you find that the weathermen will not forecast correctly, they will tell you that it will be rainy in the morning and scattered showers and clouds cast in the mountains and so forth, giving us a lot of stories. However, we are dismayed when we come in the morning; you find out that the weather is fine. There are times the same weather men will tell us that we need not plant because the rains will be short and farmers have to go by that advise only to find that the rains will fall, well distributed and enough for crops to grow. When a contradiction of this nature comes, and this contradiction is related to weather, in the end, it is the farmer who will lose. It means that even with regard to the food security aspect, we will lose a lot of money just because of one man’s pronouncement, called, a weather forecaster. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, you go to places like Europe, when they say that there will be showers at noon, there will be showers that noon. When they say that there will be hailstones at 4.00 p.m., check your watch at 4.00 p.m., and there will be hailstones. So, here, we never get that exactness of the weather forecasting. That is why we need to manage these things because there are a times when the weather men might make very serious errors, and we are wondering whether this Bill cannot even capture an amendment to say that once weathermen make mistakes, they should have insured farmers so that the farmers are paid the damages caused by the changes of weather more so, in the tea growing areas. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am aware that you also come from the tea growing regions where in the morning you might find all the tea destroyed by hailstones. This is The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}