Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh Thursday launched a free SMS service called ‘Nowcast’, which will provide alerts on extreme weather conditions like hailstorm every three hours to over one crore registered farmers on their mobile phones. He also unveiled a website on crop insurance. The portal will encourage farmers to take advantage of the existing schemes and insure their crops. The portal, however, has been launched in English.
“The SMS warnings on extreme weather conditions such as thunderstorm, hail and squall will help farmers take precautionary measures as needed and feasible,” said Singh.
The free SMS alerts, to be sent in English, Hindi and regional languages as per farmers’ request, will be issued to over one crore farmers whose mobile phones are registered on the government’s mKisan portal.
The data for SMS service will be taken from 146 weather stations of the India Meteorological Department (IMD). IMD has 17 doppler radars that feed information on <g data-gr-id="21">extreme</g> weather to these stations, the Minister added.
“These alerts are already available on the IMD website. Since the warnings are valid for three hours, farmers could not get the information in time because of limitations in accessing the IMD website at <g data-gr-id="24">farm</g> level,” said IMD Director General LS Rathore.
Talking about the web portal, Singh said: “There is a lack of awareness about crop insurance among the country’s farming community. The portal will provide information on the existing insurance products and premium rates, among other details.”