New Delhi, Jan 14: On the occasion of 147th Foundation Day of India Meteorological Department Friday, Union Minister of State Dr Jitendra Singh inaugurated and dedicated to the nation four Doppler Weather Radars at Leh, Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai, respectively for better operational analysis and more accurate forecasts.
With the inauguration, the number of such radars in the country has reached up to 33. The minister said that augmentation of modern observing platforms such as Automatic weather stations, Doppler Weather Radars and Meteorological Satellites will help in further improving weather and climate services.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that India has taken a lead in Asian Continent to provide Weather and Climate services to South Asian, South-East Asian and Middle East countries.
Addressing a galaxy of administrators, scientists and scholars on the occasion, Dr Jitendra Singh said that the severe weather forecasting being provided to many countries since 2016 under PM NarendraModi has come a long way and proved handy to countries like Nepal and Bangladesh in fighting severe climatic disasters. Referring to ISRO’s SAARC Satellite, the Minister said, in coming days, IMD will reorient its weather and climate services in the most modern way to cater to global needs.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that the Ministry of Earth Sciences will deploy and use Drone based Observation Technology in a big way for strengthening the localised forecasting, besides adopting the High Resolution Models. He emphasised that the language used in forecast and information would be made easy to understand and serve as a clear basis for taking action by every citizen.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that the Government is committed to make India Meteorological Department a World Class Organization for better delivery of services enabling a common man to take weather-wise and climate-smart decisions.
He said, every common is impacted by five vital sectors of Agriculture, Health, Water, Energy and Disaster management being effectively catered to by IMD.
R.K. Mathur, Lieutenant Governor, UT of Ladakh, JamyangTseringNamgyal, MP, Ladakh, Dr.M. Ravichandran, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences,Chairman, ISRO Dr.K,Sivan, Dr M. Mohapatra, DG, IMD,Dr S D Attri, Scientist G and Chairman, Organizing Committee, Ex. DGMs and other retired officials of IMD and Directors of MoES Institutes, invited dignitaries, officers, scientists took part in the ceremony.
Referring to about 20-40% improvement in accuracy of severe weather warning by IMD in recent five years as compared to previous five years, Dr Jitendra Singh said, forecast of high temperature and heat wave condition well in advance resulted in significant reduction in the number of deaths due to heat waves in subsequent years. He called upon all the agencies for zero heat related mortality in the coming year.
Dr Jitendra Singh inaugurated the new platform like crowd searching for collection of observation through public, thus opening a new chapter in citizen science, which will act as a bridge between science and society.
He said, the web GIS services launched by IMD today will be very helpful for the public, disaster managers and stakeholders to initiate timely response action to mitigate the disasters further and underlined that the impact based forecast issued by IMD is helping to minimise the loss of life and property.