Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the city on Saturday stands cancelled owing to ‘extremely heavy rainfall’ alert issued by Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC). As per the previously finalised official programme, Prime Minister was scheduled to be on a visit to the city on Saturday, during which he was to launch several projects. His itinerary included inauguration of Maha Metro exhibition at Subhash Nagar station of Nagpur Metro Rail project, flagging off Lokmanya Nagar-Sitabuldi metro train ‘Aqua Line’, taking a ride up to Sitabuldi Interchange station, along with Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister, and Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road Transport. Prime Minister was scheduled to launch various programmes in a function at Mankapur Indoor Stadium.

 

Narendra Modi 

 

However, owing to heavy rainfall on Friday, several areas in the city experienced waterlogging including the major cement roads. M L Sahu, Deputy Director of Regional Meteriological Centre (RMC), Nagpur, informed the district administration that RMC had declared ‘Orange Alert’ for the city till Saturday. ‘Orange Alert’ indicates likelihood of heavy (65 mm to 125 mm) to very heavy (125 mm to 200 mm) rainfall in 24 hours. RMC was to review the alert and there were chances of it raising it to ‘Red Alert’ (extremely heavy rainfall, beyond 200 mm).

 

RMC passed on the information to State Protocol Office, which further conveyed the same to the Prime Minister’s Officer (PMO). Later on, the officials were informed that Prime Minister’s visit to Nagpur was cancelled. “The new dates will be conveyed whenever received,” stated an official release issued by the district administration on Friday late evening.

 

Maha Metro also stated in a message that as the Prime Minister’s visit to Nagpur stood cancelled, the inauguration of ‘Aqua Line’ also stood postponed.