Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES)

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.