West Bengal government to set up weather stations in 107 blocks to help farmers

KOLKATA: West Bengal government has decided to set up weather stations across the state to provide farmers with information about the climate and weather. The state agriculture department will install automatic weather stations in 107 blocks to alert farmers on climatic changes. The initiative will cost Rs 3 crore.

A senior official of the state agriculture department said on Friday that the move was aimed at informing farmers about the weather and climate conditions so as to help them utilise the optimum climatic conditions for the best possible cultivation. This apart, the system will also help them take preventive measures ahead of any natural calamity, thereby minimising crop damage.

During the past one year, hailstorms have damaged several hectres of paddy and vegetables in the districts of south Bengal. According to officials of the department, the extent of damage could have been reduced had there been a proper alert mechanism.

The automatic weather stations will provide the exact weather conditions namely temperature, pressure, wind, humidity and rain at the particular block. At present, there is a network of observatories in the state for recording the weather. But it has been observed that the observatories are not functioning properly due to a dearth of manpower. Moreover, manual recording and transmission at times fail to provide data on time.

The department is planning to come up with a system that will generate specific weather forecasting information in advance.