Andaman and Nicobar Islands MP Kuldeep Rai has urged Lieutenant Governor DK Joshi to put the the Union Territory’s disaster management machinery on high alert in view of the Cyclone Asani, PTI reported on Friday.

The India Meteorological Department has predicted that a low-pressure area over the Bay of Bengal will intensify by the morning of March 20. It will turn into a cyclonic storm on March 21, according to the weather department’s forecast.

In a letter sent to Joshi, Rai also requested that holidays be declared on March 19 and 21 in all schools and colleges in the archipelago situated in the Bay of Bengal.

Named by Sri Lanka, the storm is expected to move along and off the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and reach the coasts of Bangladesh and North Myanmar on March 22.

In an advisory on March 16, the weather department had asked fishermen not to sail into east-central Bay of Bengal between March 21 and 23 and into northeast Bay of Bengal between March 22 and 23.

Referring to the warning, Rai suggested that the lieutenant governor should suspend all tourism activities in Andaman between March 19 to 22, PTI reported. “If formed, the cyclonic storm will cause serious damage to the Union territory,” he wrote in the letter.

Rai also insisted that sufficient number of officials be deployed in remote islands to manage the situation effectively.

Meanwhile, GK Das, the director of the Kolkata office of the India Meteorological Department, said that the coastal areas of West Bengal were unlikely to be hit by Cyclone Asani, The Telegraph reported on Thursday.

“A cyclone has three impacts – rain, winds and storm surge,” Das said. “This one is likely to be too far from Bengal to have any substantial effect under any of the three possibilities.”