IMD’S Major Project of Modernization on Integrated Forecasting and Communication System Launched Today
Forecasting is very crucial when one come across events like Leh and Uttarakhand. Some of them might be due to global phenomena of climate change, human interventions and others, but understanding this complex phenomena is very crucial for entire world community and more so for India. Inaugurating Integrated Forecasting and Communication System at India Meteorology Department (IMD) here today, Shri Prithviraj Chavan, Minister of State for the Ministry of Earth Sciences (I/C) said, “Dynamic weather prediction models using super computers and very highly sophisticated software will start giving us more and more accurate data. India is subject to several kinds of meteorological hazards which may endanger lives of its citizens, whether they come in the form of drought, heat waves, monsoon, floods, thunderstorms, or tropical cyclone. Agriculture, like so many sectors of Indian economy is highly dependent on weather and climate.”
Shri Chavan further said, “Increasing socio-economic benefits of meteorology in all fields, saving lives and protecting goods in a changing climate is the permanent mission of the India Meteorological Department. Through an unrivalled modernization program in IMD’s history, the Government of India has decided to put all efforts on increasing such benefits as well as on IMD skills. Since its inception in 1875, IMD has progressively expanded its infrastructure for meteorological observations, communications, forecasting and weather services and has achieved a significant scientific growth by using contemporary technology. As the National Weather Service, IMD has played a pivotal role for safety, security and well-being of the people of the country.”
The Minister explained that to convert an age old organization into a modern state of art system using the latest observational platforms, computing equipment, communications network was a great challenge. The project of modernization of IMD started many years back. The governments took it as one of our priorities and Rs 1000 crore programme was sanctioned by Planning Commission in 2007. Important components including setting up of automatic weather stations, Doppler Radars, connecting them with most high speed digital interconnecting systems and network as well as buying super computers for numerical weather prediction have been over.
After collecting all data from all over the world from satellite, earth stations, ground based and sea based observation platforms; IMD connects many parameters of weather without loosing time and gives accurate results to users. With the modernization plan of IMD in place, a much greater impact is to be seen in the quality and diversity of its services.”
Shri Chavan said, “IMD is catering to certain traditional sectors such as aviation, shipping, agriculture, petroleum, coastal marine and fisheries community etc. However there are new demands posed by sectors such as tourism, power, adventure and sport, defense, health, highway, industries, transport etc. In view of this, there is a requirement for a specialized Public Weather Service (PWS) to cater to user specific requirements. We invite new and young talents to join this service as human resources are required to run the service.”
The Minister also released a ‘Handbook on Public Weather System’. The new Public Weather System has the capability to automatically design, generate and disseminate tailor –made weather products. This will also constitute an ideal interface with the media and will go a long way to establish a world class weather service in the country.
‘Project Varsamana’ and ‘Weather and Climate of New Delhi for the Month of October’ were also released on this occasion. Under the umbrella of the strategic partnership signed in July 2006 between Ministry of Earth Science and Meteo France International (MFI) France, Varsamana project has been initiated in 2008. Varsamana project is the cornerstone of the IMD Modernization Program, since it will help demonstrating the ultimate outcome in the form of improved services to the user community. It contributes to integration of all its individual components, hence it guarantees cost effectiveness of overall investment. It is delivering a modern, integrated Meteorological Information System, in order to guarantee improved warning and services at district level. It also brings the integration with existing systems and mainly new observation and computing systems coming to IMD in the context of the modernization program.
The Varsamana Project covers consultancy, continuous support in the form of capacity building and change management.
KP