Lok Sabha Question No. 54 (STARRED), answered on 2019-02-06
Subject: Agricultural Weather Forecast
Ministry: EARTH SCIENCES
Asked by: ASHOK MAHADEORAO NETE

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF EARTH SCIENCES LOKSABHA

## STARRED QUESTION No. *54

TO BE ANSWERED ON WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2019

## AGRICULTURAL WEATHER FORECAST

*54 SHRI ASHOK MAHADEORAO NETE:

Will the Minister of EARTH SCIENCES be pleased to state:

- (a) whether the Government has taken any steps to strengthen agricultural weather forecast services to utilize advanced information technology to address the risk in agriculture sector
- and to provide early weather information to farmers;
- (b) if so, the details thereof along with the capacity of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) to meet these challenges; and
- (c) the action taken by the Government for modernization and development of devices and equipments for publicity of accurate and region specific agricultural weather information at district level?

## ANSWER

MINISTER FOR MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AND MINISTRY OF EARTH SCIENCES (DR. HARSH VARDHAN)

(a) to (c): A statement is laid on the Table of the House.

## STATEMENT LAID ON THE TABLE OF THE LOK SABHA IN REPLY TO PARTS CAlTO CClOF THE LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. *54 REGARDING 'AGRICULTURAL WEATHER FORECAST' FORANSWER ON OSTH FEBRUARY, 2019.

- (a) & (b) Yes Madam. The Government has introduced several latest information technologies to provide information to the farmers on agriculture related activities.

India Metrological Department (IMD), under "Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa (GKMS)"scheme,issues district level weather forecasts for the next five days covering all the districts in the country. Basedon the weather forecast, Agromet Advisories are prepared in collaboration with 130 Agro-Meteorological Field Units (AMFUs) and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). These advisories are communicated to the farming community through multichannel dissemination systems including SMSusing mobile phones.Suchinputs help farmers to save their crops under adverse weather situations as well as to take the benefit of benevolent weather condition to undertake appropriatefarm operations to increaseyield, ultimately.

Agromet Advisories are also issued to the farmers through SMS cyclone, heavy rainfall etc. so as to minimize the crop damagesdue to inclement during extreme weather events like hailstorm, weather, by taking preventive action.

Basedon ExtendedRangeForecastsfor the next 20-30days, the Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA) in collaboration with IMDissues weekly National Agromet Advisory bulletin for the planners at central and State levels, farmers and other organisations for preparednessto cope up with ensuing weather conditions for better crop management.

- (c) Currently, IMD is generating medium range weather forecasts at sub-district level across the country in 12kmx 12km scale.A high resolution (12 km grid scale) state of the art Global Ensemble Prediction System (EPS) namely Global Ensemble Forecasting System (GEFS) were commissioned on 01 June 2018 for generating operational probabilistic weather forecasts for 10 dayswhich will enhancethe weather information being provided by the current models by quantifying the uncertainties in the weather forecasts. The above mentioned forecast systems will be improvedfurther for better accuracy.

IMD is taking continuous efforts to popularize the service among the farming community by organising Farmers' Awareness Programmes (FAPs) in various parts of the country. IMD along with the experts from AMFUs also participate in Kisan Melas, Farmers' Day etc. to create awareness about the services so that more farmers get benefitted. Through such programmes, details of more number of farmers are also collected for enhancing the outreach. Around 40 million farmers are now receiving the weather information and Agromet Advisories through SMS on regular basis.

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