IMD to offer area-specific weather forecasts to farmers free of cost

IMD to offer area-specific weather forecasts to farmers free of cost

Subject: Geography

Section: Climatology 

• The India Meteorological Department (IMD) is working on a plan to provide localised medium-range weather forecasts in regional languages through short message service (SMS) to farmers on request and for free.
• By dialing a dedicated number, farmers from anywhere in the country can request for weather information such as rains, temperature, humidity and wind speed for the next five days for their village or block.
• The requests made by the farmers would be processed by a dedicated team in IMD and information would be given to them in respective regional languages through SMS.
• This would help farmers to plan their agricultural activities such as use of fertilisers and other inputs, irrigation etc.
• Citizens can also request for information about their local weather forecasts using the common phone number.
• At present, under a joint initiative of IMD, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), a mobile app ‘Meghdoot’ provides district specific farm advisories on crop and livestock management in English and local languages.
• Under the Gramin Krishi Mausam Seva, the met department is providing district level weather forecasts twice a week in collaboration with state agricultural universities and affiliated institutes of ICAR.
• The district level weather forecast for the next five days includes information about rainfall, temperature, wind speed and direction, humidity and clouds.
• Currently, IMD also provides weekly crop specific agro-meteorological advisories in vernacular languages to more than 28 million farmers in the country using various communication tools such as SMS, interactive voice response using agriculture ministry’s Kisan portal and through private entities such as IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Limited, Reliance foundation and Mahindra Samriddhi under public private partnership mode.