Over 96% of planned sensors are yet to be installed. An ambitious public-private partnership project by an Agriculture Ministry body to install automatic rain gauges and automatic weather stations in States is proceeding at a crawl, with completion rates in the single digits and at least a year behind deadline.
The reason, companies tasked with the implementation say, is a paucity of land to install these weather stations and an alleged “retrospective” insistence by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) that these sensors be set up on the ground rather than on rooftops.
‘Height affects weather data’
The Weather Information Network and Data System (WINDS) is a programme to set up a nationwide network of weather sensors to supply hyper-local weather data. This is mainly to aid in computing insurance estimates and payouts under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY). It is run by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, and executed through the Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre (MNCFC). Under the WINDS network, the States, through their implementing private partners, are required to set up the sensor network. An AWS measures rainfall along with air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and wind direction. Data from these sensors flow into data centres run by government agencies, to prepare hourly, daily, and fortnightly forecasts. “The underlying principle – and this is a requirement of the World Meteorological Organisation whose guidelines we adhere to – is that sensors must be on the ground and only in exceptional situations be situated on rooftops. Height significantly affects weather data,” S. “Measuring rainfall from the top of the building and from the ground makes a significant difference as some part of falling rain evaporates. Secondly, a consistent network of ground-based sensors is necessary to ensure standardised data, which is difficult to achieve if sensors are on rooftops (with variable heights). India lives in its villages and it should not be that challenging to get small plots of land,” IMD director general M. He underlined that the IMD was only a technical partner for the project and was not administering it.
The Hindu could confirm that three companies — Skymet Weather Services; Ingen Technologies Private Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Weather Risk Management Services; and Azista Industries — were collectively asked to instal 1,197 automatic weather stations (AWSs) and 49,313 automatic rain gauges (ARGs), or about 50,500 sensors in all. An ARG measures rainfall only, though about 10% of ARGs at the gram panchayat level also carry a temperature sensor. Hosalikar, a former senior meteorologist with the IMD and a member of the 2023 committee, told The Hindu .
Mohapatra told The Hindu .
