NEW DELHI: In a move to regulate private weather forecast players, improving use of weather and climate forecast to cut down loss of lives in natural disasters, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) is working upon a national meteorological policy.
Across the world, many countries, including neighbouring countries like Bangladesh, have a national met policy, that regulates weathers services to ensure there is a set mechanism to provide better weather services to people.
“India does not have a national met policy. Each country has a nodal weather agency and there are various private players, the policy defines what will be rules, regulations and mechanism for accommodating both to provide better services and reduce the loss of lives (natural calamity/extreme weather events),” said IMD Director General M Mohapatra.
The IMD is in the process of holding informal discussions with various stakeholders before a concrete document is prepared. The policy is scheduled to have roles defined for individuals, NGOs, government organisation and various stakeholders during disasters and to check such events.
On the need for a dedicated policy, Mohapatra said: “Weather and climate has massive application as we are a developing nation.”
The IMD is planning to expand its forecast from rather than just giving weather predictions to possible damages inclement weather can cause.
Also in the pipeline is improving weather forecast by increasing number of observatories and expanding weather network coverage from present 50X50 km to 25X25 km in the next five years.