The Ministry of Earth Sciences is proposing a new 5-year plan which will provide
easily available improved weather forecasting for farmers in the hope that this
will improve agricultural productivity and therefore positively impact economic
growth.
Promising to have the new system in place by 2008, Minister Kapil Sibal said
that his Ministry will collaborate with the Ministry of Agriculture, Indian
Space Research Organisation, State Departments of Agriculture, agricultural
universities and NGOs such as M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation to implement
the plan. Revealing this plan while announcing the 14th session of the World
Meteorological Organisation's Commission for Agriculture Meteorology hosted by
the India Meteorological Department (IMD) in New Delhi from October 28 to
November 3, Sibal said that for India to achieve a 10% economic growth, it needs
Agriculture to grow by 4%. IMD says that an apex body involving all
collaborators will be set up to monitor the implementation.
What is not clear is whether Sibal is announcing a new plan that is already
being rolled out or whether this is a new plan that has just been
conceptualized. While there is a critical need for such a plan, it is
inconceivable how he can roll out such a plan by 2008 if the plan has just been
conceived. Just having all parties agree on a set of requirements for
implementation will be a huge task. After that, there are multi-parametric
modeling issues, programming, identification of computer systems capable of
running such complex software, data collection methodology may have to be
changed to suit the new model, reporting mechanisms and formats need to be
designed, and above all information delivery mechanisms in multiple languages is
key.
Even if the plan is already being implemented, it is inconceivable how it can be
rolled out within a 15 months
