Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES)

Air pollution is a serious social problem, especially in major cities. To understand the gravity of air pollution problems, a System of Air Quality forecasting and Research (SAFAR) was set up by the Ministry. It provides location specific information on air quality in near real time and its forecast 24 hours in advance. Monitoring and forecasting by SAFAR is done for major gaseous pollutants including ozone, oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, benzene and other hydrocarbons as well as the particulate matters (PM) of two different sizes — as PM-10 and PM-2.5.

Ocean State Forecasts (forecasts of waves, currents, sea surface temperature, etc.) to fisher folk, shipping industry, oil and natural gas industry, Navy, Coast Guard and other stakeholders have improved considerably during the last 3 years. Oil spill advisories are being provided to facilitate the indication of eco-sensitive zones, potential fishing zones, fishing avoidance zone during the event of oil spill.

The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) provides PFZ advisories to 2.75 lakh fishermen on a daily basis to help them to easily locate the areas of abundant fish in the ocean. The number of fisherman receiving the PFZ advisories increased from 1.05 lakh fisherman in 2014 to 2.75 lakh fisherman in 2017.

The Ministry in collaboration with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) provides the Agromet Advisory Services (AAS) for the benefit of farmers. Farmers make use of these services for planning the operations like sowing, irrigation, application of fertilizer and pesticide, harvest and protection of crops from weather disasters. The services carried out at 130 agro met zones (cluster of 4-6 districts) now have been successfully extended to the district level and operated across 608 districts of the country.

The quality of weather services by the Ministry has shown appreciable improvements during the past three years. Specifically, noticeable improvements have been achieved in prediction skills of heavy rainfall and tropical cyclones. This is evident with reference to recent tropical cyclones, Phailin, Hudhud and Vardah and the heavy rainfall events in Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir and recently in Chennai.