Indian minister for state for ministry of science & technology and earth sciences, Y S Chowdary has informed the upper house of parliament that the Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa (GKMS) AGROMET service of India Meteorological Department (IMD) has crossed 19.1 million as on July 2016.
During the same period last year, farmers 11.5 million farmers have received the agromet service.
The minister said, IMD was successful in providing the crop specific advisories to the farmers through different print/visual/Radio/ IT based media including short message service (SMS) and Interactive Voice Response Service (IVRS) facilitating for appropriate field level actions.
Efforts are continuously being made to expand the participation and outreach to all farmers under GKMS scheme, Chowdary adds.
Detailing the current status of the scheme, the Minister informed that crop specific advisories under GKMS, through Agriculture Field Monitoring Unit (AFMU), are rendered twice a week in collaboration with State Agricultural Universities (SAUs), institutions of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), IITs etc. Such advisories are formulated based on district level weather forecast for next 5-days in respect of:
- Rainfall
- Maximum temperature, minimum temperature
- Wind speed, wind direction
- Relative humidity and cloud cover
- Weekly cumulative rainfall forecast
Further, Chowdary, in his reply, noted that weather forecast based agro meteorological advisories are disseminated in vernacular language through Kisan portal launched by the Ministry of Agriculture and also under public private partnership. At present, the GKMS products are disseminated through SMS and IVRS to 19.1 million farmers in the country.
State wise details of number of farmers receiving AGROMET Advisories through SMS during July 2015 & July 2016 are given below:
State Name | Number of farmers receiving SMS through Kisan Portal–July 2015 | Number of farmers receiving SMS through Kisan Portal–July 2016 |
ANDHRA PRADESH | 109200 | 143091 |
ASSAM | 33475 | 24240 |
BIHAR | 453330 | 676325 |
GUJARAT | 214660 | 154747 |
HARYANA | 265339 | 339253 |
HIMACHAL PRADESH | 15556 | 541634 |
JAMMU AND KASHMIR | 19376 | 4817 |
KARNATAKA | 151244 | 218808 |
KERALA | 468190 | 373240 |
MADHYA PRADESH | 519936 | 232328 |
MAHARASHTRA | 2088203 | 4928562 |
MANIPUR | 797 | 184 |
MEGHALAYA | 923 | 987 |
MIZORAM | 0 | 1831 |
NAGALAND | 1965 | 2539 |
ODISHA | 113133 | 156168 |
PUNJAB | 123530 | 136526 |
RAJASTHAN | 185625 | 221473 |
TAMIL NADU | 754498 | 709317 |
TRIPURA | 3723 | 4389 |
UTTAR PRADESH | 1287475 | 852112 |
UTTARAKHAND | 75456 | 80587 |
WEST BENGAL | 123611 | 389440 |
CHATTISGARH | 1292293 | 1366443 |
JHARKAND | 535812 | 748535 |
A AND N ISLANDS | 1234 | 2056 |
ARUNACHAL PRADESH | 308 | 450 |
DELHI | 3725 | 1926 |
PUDUCHERRY | 3167 | 23538 |
TELANGANA | 78270 | 82294 |
SIKKIM | 2 |
|
Total | 8924056 | 12417840 |
SMS sent by AMFUs through NIC and other services | 130198 | 129961 |
Reliance Foundation | 17000 | 2639919 |
SMS by Private companies under PPP mode | 2407853 | 3912280 |
Grand Total | 11.5 million | 19.1 million |