4.17. Weather based Information regarding natural calamities disseminated to farmers under different programmes.

♤ Weather based information on natural calamities like drought etc. is one of the identified services under NeGP-A pertains to “Providing information on Forecasted Weather” and aims at providing disaggregated District level information in each agro-ecological sub-region on forecasted weather and agro-met advisories through multiple service delivery channels to the farmers (including SMS) .

♤ Weather related advisory service to farmers under Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa (GKMS) is being implemented by the Department of Agriculture, Government of Maharashtra and India Meteorological Department (IMD), Ministry of Earth Services (MoES), Govt. of India

♤ Development of need based content on weather information and advisories to farmers has been initiated by IMD, Department of Agriculture, Government of Maharashtra and GIZ, New Delhi under the project on “Climate Change Knowledge Network – Indian Agriculture (CCKN-IA)”

♤ Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre (MNCFC) regularly (on monthly basis) carries out drought assessment at District/sub-district level using satellite based remote sensing data, rainfall data and ground information with respect to sowing progression, irrigation percentage, under the National Agricultural Drought Assessment and Monitoring System (NADAMS) programme etc. These assessments are communicated to concerned Departments in States including Maharashtra and are also available online on MNCFC website

♤ IMD in consultation with SAUs, State Department of Agriculture (including Maharashtra) carries out monitoring of drought and other calamities at district level based on the observed rainfall and other parameters like Aridity Index, Standardised Precipitation Index, NDVI etc.