(a) whether the Government proposes to provide weather forecast information to the farmers across the country and the latest information relating to environment in all the cities;
(b) if so, the details thereof; and
(c) the time by which the weather related information service is targeted to be provided at block level by the Government?
THE MINISTER FOR MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
AND MINISTRY OF EARTH SCIENCES
(DR. HARSH VARDHAN)
(a)-(b) The Gramin Krishi Mausam Seva (GKMS) of India Meteorological Department (IMD) is rendered twice a week in collaboration with State Agricultural Universities (SAUs) and Institutions of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). Under this, district level weather forecasts for next 5- days in respect of
• Rainfall
• maximum temperature, minimum temperature
• wind speed, wind direction
• relative humidity and clouds
• weekly cumulative rainfall forecast
• crop specific advisories
are provided to farmers. The GKMS of IMD has been successful in providing the crop specific advisories to the farmers through different print/visual/Radio/ IT based media including short message service (SMS) and Interactive Voice Response Service (IVRS) facilitating for appropriate field level actions. At present, about 22.7 million farmers out of 95 million estimated farming households in the country are receiving the SMS based advisories.
(c) Efforts for Pilot mode initiative for sub-district scale (block level) forecasts generation and evaluation are underway.