THE MINISTER OF STATE (INDEPENDENT CHARGE) FOR
MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
AND EARTH SCIENCES
(DR. JITENDRA SINGH)
(a)-(b) Yes Sir. Weather-based Agromet Advisories are being provided to the farmers in regional languages on every Tuesday and Friday under operational Agrometeorological Advisory Services (AAS) viz., GraminKrishiMausamSewa (GKMS) scheme of India Meteorological Department (IMD).
Under GKMS scheme, medium range weather forecast at district and block level is generated and based on the forecast, 130 Agromet Field Units (AMFUs), located at State Agricultural Universities, institutes of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) etc., prepare Agromet Advisories on every Tuesday and Friday for the districts under their jurisdiction and for the blocks of the district of their location and communicate to the farmers to take decision on day-to-day agricultural operations.
After successful implementation of district level AAS, District Agromet Units (DAMUs) are being established at KrishiVigyanKendras (KVKs) in collaboration with ICAR to implement block level Agromet Advisory Services (AAS). Till date, 199 District Agromet Units (DAMUs) have been established at KVKs across the country under ICAR network and these DAMUs prepare district and block level Agromet Advisories based on district and block level weather forecasts for their respective districts and communicate to the farmers on every Tuesday and Friday. Block level weather forecast and Agromet Advisories aid the farmers in taking decision on day-to-day agricultural operations at micro-level. In addition to that, Impact based forecast (IBFs) for agriculture are also being prepared by AMFUs and DAMUs based onthe severe weather warnings for different districts of various States and UTs across the country issued by National Weather Forecasting Centre (NWFC), New Delhi and Regional Meteorological Centres (RMCs) and Meteorological Centres (MCs) of IMD.
Agromet Advisories are disseminated to the farmers through multichannel dissemination system like print and electronic media, Door Darshan, radio, internet etc. including SMS using mobile phones through Kisan Portal and also through private companies under Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode. The number of farmers receiving SMS varies depending on the population of farming community and area under cultivation. Regular dissemination of warning through Kisan Portal launched by Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare is not in practice since June 2021. However, SMS to the farmers through private companies is continued as earlier.
With the advancement of ICT, Farmers access the weather information including alerts and related agromet advisories specific to their districts through the mobile App viz., ‘Meghdoot’ launched by Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India. These weather details are also accessible by farmers through another App ‘KisanSuvidha’, launched by Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare.
Social media is also used for quicker dissemination of forecast and advisories to the farmers. At present farmers of 1,19,534 villages in 3,596 Blocks have been covered through 16,132 WhatsApp groups. State Agriculture Department officials of District and Block level are also included in these WhatsApp groups. Continuous efforts are being made to increase the number of farmers and villages covered to disseminate Agromet advisories using WhatsApp.
In addition to above, advisories are also being circulated through a number of Facebook pages created by AMFUs and DAMUs. Initiative on collaboration with State Government has been taken up for integration of weather forecast and Agromet advisories with state government mobile apps and websites. The integration has been completed for Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttarakhand states and about 6 million farmers of above-mentioned states are getting benefitted from weather forecast and agromet advisories.
(c) Yes Sir. Under GKMS scheme, one Agro-automatic Weather Station (Agro-AWS) each has been installed at each of the newly established DAMUs to generate the information on various weather parameters including rainfall, temperature, humidity and wind speed. In addition to other weather sensors, the Agro-AWSs are equipped with soil moisture and soil temperature sensors up to one-meter depth, as these parameters are very important for decision making in farm level risk management. 200 Agro-AWSs have already been installed across the country.
(d) In Tamil Nadu, 10 Agro-AWSs have been installed at KVK premises where DAMUs have been established. The details of Agro-AWS installed in Tamil Nadu are given in the following table.
List of districts with newly installed Agro-AWS in Tamil Nadu under GKMS Scheme
S.No. District KVK Name
1 Cuddalore KVK Vridhachalam
2 Pudukkottai KVK Pudukkottai
3 Ramanathpuram KVK Ramnathpuram
4 Virudhunagar KVK Aruppukottai
5 Vellore KVK Virinjipuram
6 Thirruvallur KVK Tirur
7 Kancheepuram KVK Kattupakkam
8 Dharmapuri KVK Papparapatty
9 Salem KrishiVigyan Kendra, Salem
10 Tiruchirapalli KVK Sirugamani
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