Lok Sabha Question No. 4433 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2025-08-20
Subject: Progress Report of Mission Mausam
Ministry: EARTH SCIENCES
Asked by: Smt. Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah, Shri P P Chaudhary, Shri Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri, Shri Vijay Baghel, Ms Kangna Ranaut, Shri Praveen Patel, Dr. Nishikant Dubey

## MINISTRY OF EARTH SCIENCES

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA LOK SABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 4433 TO BE ANSWERED ON WEDNESDAY, 20 TH AUGUST, 2025

## PROGRESS REPORT OF MISSION MAUSAM

## 4433.   SMT. MALA RAJYA LAXMI SHAH:

SHRI P P CHAUDHARY:

SHRI VISHWESHWAR HEGDE KAGERI:

SHRI VIJAY BAGHEL:

MS KANGNA RANAUT:

SHRI PRAVEEN PATEL:

DR. NISHIKANT DUBEY:

Will the Minister of EARTH SCIENCES be pleased to state:

- (a) the details of progress achieved under Mission Mausam in enhancing the accuracy and outreach of weather forecasting services across the country;
- (b) the  manner  in  which  the  installation  of  Doppler  Weather  Radars  and  Automatic Weather  Stations  has  contributed  to  improved  real-time  weather  data  collection  and early warning systems;
- (c) whether the Doppler Weather Radars are equipped to predict extreme monsoon events and if so, the details thereof;
- (d) the  details  of  impact  of  adopting  advanced  technologies  such  as  high-resolution forecasting models and AI-based systems in strengthening climate prediction capabilities; and
- (e) the  details  of  key  national  and  international  collaborations  established  under  Mission Mausam  to  adopt  global  best  practices  in  meteorological  services  and  disaster  risk reduction?

## ANSWER

## THE MINISTER OF STATE (INDEPENDENT CHARGE) FOR MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AND EARTH SCIENCES (DR. JITENDRA SINGH)

- (a) Mission Mausam is currently in the beginning phase of its implementation. However, once implemented, this project will  help  in the overall  improvement of the short and medium-range weather forecast accuracy by about 5-10 %.
- (b) Radars, satellite products, and AWS/ARG are needed mainly for nowcast or for very short duration forecasts for improving location-based forecasts of likely occurrences of thunderstorms and heavy rainfall upto 6 hours. Worldwide, for issuing heavy rainfall forecasts and associated flash floods and other types of floods, weather predictions are made using various observational systems and then by running various NWP models. Presently, IMD has a very good observational network consisting of surface, upper air, and remote sensing (radar and satellite) observations. These observations are assimilated in various state-of-the-art regional and global numerical models to generate weather forecasts at different time scales. Radar observations help only in further tuning at the local scale in terms of nowcast of small-scale severe weather events, mainly used for nowcast purposes.
- (c) Doppler  Weather  Radars  (DWRs)  are  vital  tools  equipped  to  detect,  monitor,  and support the prediction of extreme monsoon events. The DWR observations are available every ten minutes in  the  form of images  with  cloud types and their vertical developments  over  areas  within  the  radar.  So,  it  helps  in  monitoring  and  issuing nowcast warnings of thunderstorms, associated with heavy rainfall activities, at a very short duration of upto 3 hours.
- (d) The India Meteorological Department has been interacting and collaborating with other MoES  institutions, and has undertaken several programmes towards Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) related research activities for application in the field of weather forecasting services. Some of them are given Annexure-1.
- (e) MoES institutions such as IMD, IITM, NCMRWF, etc., regularly coordinate with other developed countries regarding their technical advancement with respect to meteorological services and early  warning  systems, like Korea, Japan, the USA,  UK, and  other  European  countries.  Knowledge-based  practices  are  shared  in  this  field through  the  exchange of  visits  of  forecasters  and  scientists  from  various  countries  to India. Due to such regular interaction, India is moreover under the umbrella of Regional Specialised  Meteorological  Centres,  Tropical  Cyclone,  Severe  Weather,  and  climate services.

## Annexure-1

-  Virtual  Centre  at  IITM,  Pune,  has  been  established  by  MoES  to  develop AI/ML/DL based application tools.
-  A  dedicated  functional  group  has  been  established  in  IMD  under  MoES  to strengthen the R&D activities in AI/ML.
-  IMD has  established  a  specialized  GPU  and  CPU-based  infrastructure  for  AI computing.
-  IMD has signed MoUs with various Academic Institutions like IITs, IIITs, NITs, ISRO,  DRDO,  Ministry  of  Electronics  and  Information  Technology  (MeitY), etc,  for  collaborations  and  R&D  activities,  utilizing  facets  of  various  AI/ML applications to weather and climate.
-  The capacity-building in AI/ML domain with respect to weather and climate are being done by nominating scientists in training sessions and workshops.
-  A  short-term  refresher  course  on  Fundamentals  of  Artificial  Intelligence  and Machine Learning organized by IMD from 27th May 2024 to 31st May 2024.

The usage of AI-based monitoring tools and forecasting models is as follows:

-  To Estimate Tropical Cyclone Intensity, satellite-based AI-enhanced Advanced Dvorak Technique (AiDT), as given by Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, is utilised by IMD apart from other products.
-  IMD also uses AI-based model guidance from the European Centre for MediumRange Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) for tropical cyclone genesis, track, and intensity prediction.

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