IMD urges govt to encourage farmers to register on portal

The officials of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Tuesday met the state government officials and urged them to speed up the process of making farmers register on M-Kisan portal.

Union Science and Technology Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan had written to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on January 5 urging him to draw farmers to register on the the portal (which was launched in 2013 to disseminate accurate and regular weather updates to all Indian farmers).

The IMD officials said that there has been no response to the letter from the state government so far.

Sundar M Metri, IMD-Bengaluru director in-charge, told DH on the sidelines of the Open Day programme held at IMD on Tuesday: “Registering farmers to the portal is the need of the hour, especially in wake of the changing weather conditions. So, we held a meeting with additional chief secretary T M Vijay Bhaskar on this issue. We wanted to know what has happened after the letter was sent. It has been a month and so far no state government official has contacted us.”

The IMD aims to register the farmers before the onset of monsoon, so that they can get the maximum benefit of this. Vijay Bhaskar said that he would look into the matter and ask the officials to reach out to the farmers.

The portal plays a vital role in communicating with the farmers. Everyday the head and regional IMD offices get calls seeking weather details. The number of calls increase during monsoon and pre-monsoon season, when weather is changing. But once farmers are registered on the portal, they will get periodic weather updates which include maximum and minimum temperatures, rainfall details and warning alerts. The portal is being managed by IMD-Pune office,  he explained.

The ministry has asked the state government to actively involve its 10 agro climatic zone units (the agro- meteorological field units) of Karnataka. The IMD has also sent letters to agricultural universities of Bengaluru, Raichur, Dharwad and other districts asking them to reach out  to farmers and urge them to register on the portal.

IMD Open Day

The Open Day at IMD, Bengaluru, received a good response.

Metri said that a team of around 90 people (doctors, patients and others associated) from Nimhans visited the IMD head office on the occasion of World Science day.

Metri said that they took keen interest to learn how weather is recorded.