Lok Sabha Question No. 1617 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2016-05-04
Subject: Efficiency of Meteorological Department
Ministry: EARTH SCIENCES
Asked by: ALOK SANJAR

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF EARTH SCIENCES LOK SABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTION No. 1617

TO BE ANSWERED ON WEDNESDAY, May 04, 2016

## EFFICIENCY OF METEOROLOGICAL DEPARTMENT

## 1617. SHRI ALOK SANJAR:

Will the Minister of EARTH SCIENCES be pleased to state:

- (a) whether the  Government has taken any steps to increase the efficiency of meteorological department;
- (b)
- if so, the details thereof; and
- (c) the  action  taken  by  the  Government  for  better  coordination  with  the State Governments in this regard?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE FOR MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AND

## MINISTRY OF EARTH SCIENCES

(SHRI Y. S. CHOWDARY)

(a-c)  Yes  Madam.  Starting  from  the  XI  five  year  plan,  Government  has initiated  a  comprehensive  upgradation  of  (i)  observation  systems  (ii) advanced data assimilation tools (iii) advanced communication and IT infrastructure (iv) high performance computing systems and (v) intensive/sophisticated  training  of  India  Meteorological  Department (IMD) personnel to facilitate the implementation of advanced prediction models for improving the accuracy of weather forecasts.

During the XIIth plan, the High Performance Computing (HPC) systems have  been  up-scaled  to  1.2  petaflops  so  far  to  support  the  ongoing efforts on modelling. Operational implementation of improved suite of prediction  models  has  enhanced  the  weather  forecasting  capability through assimilation of all available global satellite radiance data for the production of forecast products at 22km grid globally and 9km/3km grid over India/regional/mega city domains.

Further,  under  the  National  Monsoon  Mission  initiative,  the  Indian Institute  of  Tropical  Meteorology (IITM), Pune, Indian National Centre for  Ocean  Information  Services  (INCOIS),  Hyderabad  and  National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), NOIDA have embarked upon to build a state-of-the-art coupled ocean atmospheric model for a) improved prediction of monsoon rainfall on extended range to  seasonal  time  scale  (16  days  to  one  season)  and  b)  improved prediction  of  temperature,  rainfall  and  extreme  weather  events  on short to medium range time scale (up to 15 days) so that forecast skill gets quantitatively improved further for operational services of IMD.

Forecasts, early warning of severe weather events and advisories are issued by IMD  at national, regional and state levels. In order to provide early  warning  of  severe  weather  events,  IMD  has  setup  a  network  of state meteorological centres to have better coordination with the state and district level agencies. Fully organized protocol exists between IMD, Central Water Commission (CWC) and with the various designated disaster management authorities at centre and state levels for dissemination of weather forecast warning alerts. Such existing dissemination protocol is  always  duly  complied  with.  All  available  Print  and  Visual  media dissemination  mechanism  are  employed  for  expanded  outreach  of severe weather events and advisories related information. Further,  augmentation  of  the  observing  system  networks  for  the upgradation of IMD is a continuing process that shall be taken up as per the emerging needs from time to time.

*****