Minutes of the Meeting on Dissemination of Agromet Advisories through SMS, held at Central Training Institute, India Meteorological Department, Pune, on 30th July 2010.

Agricultural Meteorological Division, India Meteorological Department, Pune organized meeting on dissemination of Agromet Advisories through SMS at Central Training Institute, IMD, Pashan, Pune on 30th July 2010. The objective of the meeting is to develop mechanism to disseminate need based agromet advisories to the farmers of Maharashtra through SMS in consultation with all stakeholders engaged directly and indirectly in the outreach activities of agricultural information in the state. The meeting was inaugurated by the high officials of IMD namely Dr.L.S.Rathore, Head Agromet Services, Dr. H. R. Hatwar, ADGM(R), Dr.Vashistha, Scientist F & DDGM(SI), Dr.A.B.Mazumdar, Scientist F & DDGM(WF), Shri S.Krishnaiah, Scientist F, Dr.R.P.Samui, Scientist F & DDGM (Agrimet), Shri S.K.Prasad, DDGM(Training). Dr. (Mrs.) Swathi Sardesai, Scientist G & DDG, National Informatic Centre (NIC), Pune was also attended the meeting as a special guest. Besides a number of officers from State Department of Agriculture, Govt. of Maharashtra namely Shri D. B. Deshmukh, Deputy Director (Project), and Shri Kunjir, Chief Statistician, officers from the Commissioner of Agriculture, Pune, District Superintending Officers of different districts of Maharashtra participated. Nodal Officers of Agromet Field Units of Maharashtra located in four Agricultural Universities of Maharashtra attended the meeting. (list of participants Annexure I).

At the outset Dr.R.P.Samui welcomed all the dignitaries and participants to the important meeting. He highlighted the importance of ICT in dissemination of agromet advisories to the farmers for carrying out efficient way of agricultural operations. He informed that IMD has already started sending agromet advisories to the farmers in the country through SMS in collaboration with Reuters Market Light, Handygo, State Department of Agriculture, Govt. of Maharashtra, Vittri Solution, IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Limited and had also started dialogue with number of firms like TCS in developing and communicating personalized agromet services to the farmers. He also briefed about the objectives of the programme. He hoped that the requirement of farming community would be properly focused in the deliberations of the meeting and he wished for fruitful interactions among the participants.

Shri D. B. Deshmukh in his address gave a brief background of organising this meeting. He informed that a detailed discussion was made among the IMD officials and Commissioner of Agriculture, Maharashtra about the dissemination of agromet advisory through SMS, requirement of advisory and to take feedback of the service. He informed that SMS in respect of weather and agriculture has already been started jointly by IMD and State Department of Agriculture, Maharashtra. According to him the services should take place in organized form and the meaningful services should be through SMS to the farmers. He said that this is a good beginning and also said that this year Agromet advisory would be send through SMS to the farmers of the state in a phased manner. He added that from the next year State Agricultural Department would organise a pre-seasonal workshop in the Head quarters of Agricultural Department with invitees from Scientists of IMD including AMFU and experts of ICT.

Dr. (Mrs.) Swathi Sardesai elaborated the need to exchange the expertise of IMD with other like Departments and different stakeholders. She emphasized that the content of the SMS is important and also advised to make simple SMS and easy to understand. She suggested that the weather forecast is required to be more precise so that agriculture experts should understand and make the advisory. According to her more than 95% of the advisories issued to the farmers are on agricultural practices and more attention should be paid to make the advisories based on weather forecast. She suggested preparing meaningful agromet advisories for different agricultural practices and also to prepare data base for different types advisories and put in to webpage. She said that ICT can help both IMD and State Department of Agriculture to put the relevant information and make the web portal more resourceful for the benefit to the farmers.

Dr. H. R. Hatwar, ADGM(R) emphasized that farming community should be given information at the shortest time. Weather and agromet information need to reach quickly to the farmers and efforts should be made to inform to the farmers the correct agromet advisories at the right time.

Dr.L.S.Rathore in his inaugural address appreciated the use of the ICT at the service of the farmers in order to provide a meaningful service to the farmers. He stressed for taking efforts to improve the content of SMS. Globally India is providing the best and exemplary Agromet Advisory services in collaborative form. Efforts are being made to increase the accuracy of the district level weather forecasts by adding value at RMC/MCs. The state of art HPCs was installed in number of offices in IMD and there would be significant improvement in weather forecast which is demand driven under agromet system. Government is planning to set up District level centres and to develop meaningful agromet products that must be usable by the farming community. SMS information should have open access and the content need to simple and relevance. He suggested building a ICT based education system to the farmers and the merger of the crop growers associations with Agromet services. The inaugural session concluded with delivering of vote of thanks by Dr.K.Ghosh.

Dr.N.Chattopadhyay presented on Dissemination of Agromet Advisories through SMS Services. He explained the different activities of AAS in Maharashtra. He informed that at present SMS is sent to 1,47,916 farmers in the State out of which SMS sent by RML is 119116, Vittri is 2300, Handygo is 500 and Agriculture Department is 26000 including IFFCO. The other companies in the pipelines are NABARD, TCS, Nokia and Coromandel International limited.

Shri D.B.Deshmukh gave a presentation on Dissemination of Agromet Advisory services through SMS. He described how the Government of Maharashtra is sending the agricultural information to the farmers. He mentioned that there are 2,60,000 registered users for the service. He also said that focus of the SMS is to provide location specific and more critical information which is character based, focused and timely.

Dr.(Mrs.) Swati Sardesai presented on role of NIC in exchange of crop data from different districts of Maharashtra. The most important services of NIC are web services. After creating the website hosting is also undertaken by NIC and also with more thrust on security and NIC insists security audit has to be done before placing in web. Department of Agriculture has the facility in their website where all the taluk rainfall information is being updated. She desired that the free software package like Drupal for content management services for agromet services is important.

Shri A.M.Phule presented on Pest Surveillance System in Maharashtra. The objective of the project is surveillance, awareness creation and advisory services. At village level 550 scouts have been employed for surveillance (twice in a week) and the data are fed into computer models and analysed for issue of advisories. The advisories are disseminated through on line SMS and e-media to the farmers. He desired that current weather data of 19 IMD observatories in Maharashtra has to be made available for the pest surveillance project.

Prof. C. D. Chavan presented on the Formulation of Location and weather specific SMS. He briefed the existing system of agromet advisory preparation and dissemination mechanism of the Units under the MPKV, Rahuri like Pune, Rahuri and Igatpuri.

Shri Ajay Mittal, Tata Consultant Services (TCS), Mumbai presented on the role of Agromet Advisories using mkrishi platform. He told about the proposed plan of dissemination of agromet information to the farmers through mobile. He told that under the project farmers can make picture of their pest incidence and send to expert and get advisory immediately. Besides pest advisory they can get information on type of crops and varieties to be taken for sowing and similar other things.

Dr.L.S.Rathore as a panel chairman presented the implementation points as under.

  1. Free flow of exchange of data /information & creation of linkage : Weather data and crop and pest and disease data should be exchanged freely among all the concerned organizations. To have seamless exchange of data / information, forging of linkage like trans-departmental linkage is to be made. Develop mechanism for forging ties. Use existing linkages with free flow of data exchange. Private partners may be asked to provide ground observation on real time.
  2. Forecast and advisories: Advisories has to be pertinent and forecast need to be improved. There is much scope for improving the advisories using the weather forecast. Exceptional weather variability is more important and advisory has to cover these aspects.
  3. Inculcate use of enhanced ICT application: The road map prepared through this meeting has to be elaborated and to be exchanged with the other stake holders including NIC. Any budgetary requirement for this has also to be chalked out.
  4. Scale up the mechanism for feedback analysis: The existing sources of feedback have to be added with other sources of feedback. Linkages with Kisan Call Centre have to be established for collection of feedback.
  5. Training/Awareness of field Officer: Training to be imparted to those Officers at field level like AMFU, Technical Officers of Department of Agriculture, scouts etc.
  6. Public Private Partnership model has to be strengthened to prepare and disseminate the need based advisories to the farmers.
  7. The implementation module has to be replicated to other States also.

List of Officers participated in the meeting held at CTI, Pashan, Pune,

on 30th July 2010.

SN / Name of Officer / Designation / Office
01 / Dr.L.S. Rathore / Head, Agromet Services / India Met. Dept., New Delhi
02 / Dr.H.R.Hatwar / ADGM(R) / India Met. Dept., Pune
03 / Dr. R.P.Samui / Scientist F & DDGM (Ag) / India Met. Dept., Pune
04 / Dr. R.D. Vashitha / Scientist F & DDGM (SI) / India Met. Dept., Pune
05 / Dr.A.B.Mazumdar / Scientist F & DDGM (WF) / India Met. Dept., Pune
06 / Dr.A.L.Koppar / DDGM(C) / India Met. Dept., Pune
07 / Shri. S.K.Prasad / DDGM(T) / India Met. Dept., Pune
08 / Shri. S. Krishnaiah / Scientist F / India Met. Dept., Pune
09 / Dr. (Mrs) Swati Sardesai / Scientist G & DDG / National Infor. Centre, Pune
10 / Shri. D.B. Deshmukh / Dy.Director( Project) / O/o Commi. of Agri. Pune
11 / Shri.Ajay Mittal / Consultant / TCS, Mumbai
12 / Dr. N.Chattopadhyay / Scientist E / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
13 / Dr. A.Kashyapi / Director / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
14 / Dr.K.Ghosh / Met-I / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
15 / Shri. R. Balsubramanian / Met-I / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
16 / Dr.M.Rajavel / Met-I / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
17 / Dr. S. Datta / Scientist E / O/o DDGM(T), IMD, Pune
18 / Dr. P.Khare / Director / O/o DDGM(T), IMD, Pune
19 / Shri. S.I.M.Rizvi / Met-I / O/o DDGM(T), IMD, Pune
20 / Shri V.H.Deshpande / Scientist D / National Infor. Centre, Pune
21 / Shri. SY Keskar / DSAO / Sindhudurg District
22 / Shri. R.G. Bhosale / DSAO / Pune District
23 / Shri.V.V.Deokar / SDAO / O/o DSAO, Kolhapur
24 / Shri. R.S.Patil / DSAO / Parbhani District
25 / Shri. Ramesh Dhumal / SDAO / O/o DSAO, Satara
26 / Shri. V.M.Kothimbire / SDAO / O/o DSAO, Ratnagiri
27 / Shri.H.S.Chavan / SDAO / O/o DSAO, Akola
28 / Smt. N.A. Dahake / SDAO / O/o DSAO, Nashik
29 / Dr. Sanjay Wanjari / Nodal Officer / AMFU, Akola
30 / Prof. C.D.Chavan / Nodal Officer / AMFU, Pune
31 / Shri. P.R.Jaybhae, / Nodal officer / AMFU, Parbhani
32 / Shri. Fulpagare / Technical Officer / AMFU, Igatpuri, Nashik
33 / Shri. T.S.Deshmukh / Technical Officer / AMFU, Sindewahi, Chandrapur
34 / Sri.G.L.Chunale / Technical Officer / AMFU, Kolhapur
35 / Shri R.S. Mule, / Technical Officer / AMFU, Mulde, Sindhudurga
36 / Shri. Namdev Buchale / Technical Officer / AMFU, Parbhani
37 / Shri. V.G. Chavan / Technical Officer / AMFU, Dapoli, Ratnagiri
38 / Smt. Teja Dalvi / Technical Officer / AMFU, Pune
39 / Shri. R.P. Andhale / Technical Officer / AMFU, Rahuri, Ahmednagar
40 / Shri. W.D. Kunjir / Chief Statistician / O/o Commi.of Agri, Pune
41 / Shri. S.E. Jagtap / Technical Officer / O/o Commi.of Agri, Pune
42 / Shri. Arjun M.Phule / Deputy Director / O/o Commi.of Agri, Pune
43 / Smt. U.R.Bankhele / DDA / O/o Commi.of Agri, Pune
44 / Smt. Rohini Bhosale / DJD / Div. Statistician, Pune
45 / Shri.Anil Dende / Agri. Officer / O/o Commi.of Agri, Pune
46 / Shri. Arjun S. Parhad / DDA(Horti.) / O/o Commi.of Agri, Pune
47 / Shri.G.L.Ghatage / Professor / Agri. College, Pune
48 / Shri. P.H.Rasal / Professor / Agri. College, Pune
49 / Smt. M.B. Paradkar / Assitant Met-I / AAS(Mah), IMD, Pune
50 / Shri. S.V.Varude / Scientifc Assitant / AAS(Mah), IMD, Pune
51 / Shri. K.G.Kanade / Scientifc Assitant / AAS(Mah), IMD, Pune
52 / Shri. Dhotare / Assitant Met-I / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
53 / Shri. Mehere / Assitant Met-I / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
54 / Shri. M.B.Pataskar / Assitant Met-I / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
55 / Shri. N.R.Vyas / Assitant Met-I / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
56 / Shri. S.S.Shinde / Assitant Met-I / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
57 / Smt. S.S. Kulkarni / Assitant Met-I / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
58 / Smt. S.G.Angal / Assitant Met-I / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
59 / Smt. A.P. Athawale / Assitant Met-I / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
60 / Shri. S.R.Kulkarni / Assitant Met-II / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
61 / Shri.M.G.Ghanekar / Assitant Met-II / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
62 / Shri. Malve / Scientifc Assitant / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
63 / Shri. P.V.Kambale / Scientifc Assitant / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
64 / Mrs.B.S.Kurtkoti / Scientifc Assitant / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
65 / Mrs.S.V.Chandras / Scientifc Assitant / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
66 / Mrs. M.G.Ambede / Scientifc Assitant / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
67 / Shri. Jacob Thampan / Scientifc Assitant / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
68 / Mrs.V.Raskar / Scientifc Assitant / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
69 / Mrs.K.Malathi / Scientifc Assitant / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
70 / Shri.R.A.Pednekar / Scientifc Assitant / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
71 / Mrs.V.Choudhary / Scientifc Assitant / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
72 / Shri. Modiani / Scientifc Assitant / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
73 / Shri. Sanatan Das / Scientifc Assitant / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
74 / Smt. A.S. Nair / Scientifc Assitant / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
75 / Smt. Renukadevi / Scientifc Assitant / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
76 / Smt.Vinita Patwardhan / Scientifc Assitant / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
77 / Smt. Sunita Bhandari / Scientifc Assitant / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
78 / Smt. Lata Shridhar / Scientifc Assitant / O/o ADGM(R), IMD, Pune
79 / Smt. Bharati Sabade / Scientifc Assitant / O/o DDGM(WF), IMD, Pune
80 / Shri. Biwapurkar / Cashier / Agrimet Div., IMD, Pune
81 / Shri.J.R.Jadhav / Met Attendent / Agrimet Division
82 / Smt.K.S.Gabhale / Met Attendent / Agrimet Division
83 / Shri. B.M. More / Met Attendent / Agrimet Division

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