The display board near Capital police station at 2.55pm on Tuesday. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, May 28: Four digital display boards, put up by the information and public relations department within a radius of 500 metres, have been displaying different time and humidity figures.

Two placed near the Odisha Mining Corporation office and the department’s office displayed different humidity figures during a random check, while the one near Capital police station had the time wrong.

The Telegraph studied the four display boards between 2.33pm and 2.55pm today.

The display boards are placed near Odisha Mining Corporation office, Capital police station, the department’s office and Jayadev Bhavan.

The display board near the department’s office at 2.33pm was showing the time of the day as 2.39pm. The humidity level on the board was 28 per cent and temperature 37 degrees Celsius. Only 100 metres away another display board near the corporation office showed the time as 2.30pm when it was actually 2.35pm. It showed humidity level as 53 per cent and temperature as 36 degrees Celsius. Around same time at Jayadev Bhavan, the humidity level was 35 per cent.

But, the time displayed near Capital police station was horribly wrong showing 7.50pm at 2.55pm. The humidity read 29 per cent.

Niranjan Sethi, deputy director-cum-deputy secretary to the government, admitted that there were “some problem” with the digital display boards, but said that these were being managed by a Cuttack-based agency.

Another senior department official said only the news input was provided by the department, but the temperature and the humidity data were generated from the sensors which were fitted in the display boards. He said there could be technical problem with the sensors.

Sethi, however, said the agency and the officials of the department would be asked to rectify the problems with the display boards as it could mislead the people. “I am happy that people have started noticing them,” he said, adding “we should be careful to make them foolproof”.

“In near future, we are planning to link the computerised updating system with the two display boards in New Delhi and Puri, respectively, and also in 30 district headquarters towns where similar boards will be placed soon. We only need some extra funds for these,” said Sethi.