Question : National Monsoon Mission

(a) the salient features of the National Monsoon Mission;

(b) the details of funds allocated for this Mission during the last three years and the current year, State/UT-wise;

(c) the targets fixed and achievements made under this mission in the country during the last three years and the current year, State/UT-wise;

(d) whether the Government has received any special proposal from National as well as International institutes in this regard and if so, the details thereof and the reaction of the Government thereto; and

(e) the outcome of the performance evaluation of the new ocean-atmospheric model framework being adopted to overcome the existing model for better monsoon forecast?

THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AND MINISTRY OF EARTH SCIENCES
(SHRI Y. S. CHOWDARY)

(a) 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 India Meteorological Department (IMD).

(b) Details of funds allocated for the Mission during the last three years and the current year is as under:

S.No. Financial Year Rupees in Crore
1. 2013-14 185.05
2. 2014-15 78.99
3. 2015-16 63.43
4. 2016-17 62.12

(c) Targets were to develop a state of the art dynamical prediction system for monsoon rainfall (over Indian region) on different time scales (e.g., short range, medium range, extended range and seasonal time scales) with reasonably good prediction skill.

Year wise achievements are placed in Annexure-1.

(d) Government has received 75 project proposals from National as well as International institutes in this regard. These project proposals have been reviewed on the basis of their scientific merit and suitable projects were recommended for funding through Monsoon Mission. On recommendation of the Scientific Review & Monitoring Committee (SRMC) and other related Committees, the Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) of Monsoon Mission approved 40 projects.

(e) The present long range forecast system based on the statistical models has shown some useful skill in predicting all India seasonal rainfall including the deficient monsoon season rainfall during 2015. However, in order to overcome the limitations of the statistical models used so far, dynamical coupled ocean-atmospheric model framework is put under exhaustive performance evaluation under the National Monsoon Mission.