Governor Syed Sibtey Razi visits a vigilance bureau office in Ranchi on Tuesday. Telegraph picture

Ranchi, May 26: Aila, the speed demon that tossed and terrorised Bengal, has put Jharkhand, the cradle of many a tempest, on its toes.

Governor Syed Sibtey Razi today went into a huddle with adviser G. Krishnan and senior state functionaries, including chief secretary A.K. Basu, and decided to set up a calamity control room at the secretariat from June 1.

“The purpose of the control room will be to alert deputy commissioners if there is a cyclone or hailstorm forecast so that they can take preventive measures,” disaster management secretary K.K. Khandelwal said. The control room will also create weather awareness in the wake of monsoon, which is expected to hit Jharkhand in the first week of June, he said.

Besides Basu, Khandelwal and Krishnan, Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) chief executive officer (CEO) K.K. Soan, building construction secretary A.K. Sarkar, principal secretary Sudhir Tripathy, urban development secretary Shailesh Kumar Singh and officer on special duty to the governor Avinash Kumar attended the meeting.

A concerned Razi sought the status of the state’s plan to install lightning conductors on government school premises. Khandelwal said that around 50 per cent of government schools had been covered. The governor asked him to “complete the task immediately”. He also asked Khandelwal to ensure that no one in the state fell prey to lightning. Make people aware of ways to shield themselves against lightning, Razi said, referring to 83 deaths in 2008.

The disaster management secretary said that the Centre was yet to respond to the state’s request of categorising deaths due to lightning under natural disaster and pay compensation from the calamity relief fund. “However, the state has decided to pay Rs 1 lakh each to the kin of lightning victims from its own coffer,” he said. Razi is also learnt to have asked Khandelwal to compensate farmers whose crops were damaged in a recent hailstorm.

Among other measures, the governor has directed the civic body to ensure that there is no waterlogging in the capital. The disaster management department has been asked to co-ordinate with the urban development department for desiltation to unclog drains.

Earlier in the day, the governor paid a surprise visit to the offices of the Vigilance Bureau as well as public relations department.

He asked DG (vigilance) Neyaz Ahmad to expedite disposal of cases. Justice delayed is justice denied, he reminded Ahmad.

PRD officials, on the other hand, were asked to take reach out to the masses with the state’s welfare schemes.