Delhi to get a massive up gradation weather and rain forecast system, said Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh here today at a special high-level meeting convened by him to exclusively address the public concerns and inputs in the wake of the ongoing monsoon season across the country including the national capital.

Everything possible will be done, he said, to make the forecast system people -friendly in order ensure convenience and ease of living for the citizen and to save man days as well as economic fall-out of unexpected weather changes.

Presently Delhi has 17 Automatic Weather Forecast Centers. The Minister directed to install 50 more systems at the earliest and later upto 100 . The aim is to take the number of AWS to 100 and bring it on par with the world standards. These automatic weather forecasting systems provide very specific, precise and time to time forecasts.

The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Earth Sciences, MoS PMO, Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Space and MoS Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Dr. Jitendra Singh convened a high level meeting on Delhi monsoon and particularly for the National Capital region. He reviewed upgradation of weather forecasting systems across the country.

On the upgradation front Dr. Jitendra Singh shared that 3 radars and 180 automatic weather forecasting systems will be installed in Delhi NCR in the coming time. In Mumbai 2 radars have been installed and 4 more are in the pipeline. In Chennai 3 radars already exist and One more will be installed in Kolkata as well.

Dr. Jitendra Singh said “Not only in metro cities, this up gradation will continue in other cities as well cities which have more than 10 Lakh population and will be replicated in tier towns and other remote areas .

The Minister of State of Earth Sciences informed that IMD is embarking on a huge upgrade mode with future ready advanced weather prediction models strengthened with long period average (LPA) data.

Dr. Jitendra Singh also informed that a high-performance Computing(HPC) System with capacity of 20 petaflops will be installed as part of up gradation. The minister lauded the efforts of IMD of sharing data with district authorities, the armed forces and disaster management authorities to play the pivotal role in disaster risk reduction. The IMD is continuously improving weather forecast systems to help the common man and share the benefits of world-class weather forecasting technology.

The Earth Sciences Minister who is also the Minister for Dept. of Space and highlighted the multi-fold advantages of new space policy and new geospatial policy. He also mentioned the recently launched Geoportals and its applications. He also guided that similar efforts can be taken in weather forecasting and create a larger and wider impact on society. He also said that many people wouldn’t understand the criticality of forecasting systems but in recent years the forecasting and early warning systems have benefited the fishermen on a large scale.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision is to empower the farmers , fisherman and common man by these weather forecasting systems, said Dr. Jitendra Singh while guiding the team of IMD.

Dr.Mrityunjay Mohapatra, DG IMD and other senior officials of IMD and Earth Sciences ministry were present for the meeting.

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PK/PSM