Agriculture related weather parameters to be observed from 30 AWS

Port Blair, Aug 18: The Andaman & Nicobar Agriculture Weather Network was launched jointly by Shri. S.N.Mishra, Secretary to LG & Secretary (Agriculture) and Shri.Onit Panyang, Secretary (Industries), A & N Administration in a simple function held in the conference hall of Directorate of Agriculture here yesterday. Smti. Bharathi Vajjiravelu, Regional Manager, Agriculture Insurance Company of India Ltd briefed about the benefits of National Agriculture Insurance Scheme. Others who graced the occasion include Joint Secretary (IT), HODs of AH&VS, Fisheries department and representatives from CARI and Indian Meteorological Department.

Government of India, Ministry of Agriculture is implementing ‘Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme’ (WBCIS) through National Agriculture Insurance Scheme (NAIS) to provide transparent, fully objective, efficient and direct pay outs for adverse weather incidences and to mitigate the hardship of the insured farmers against the likelihood of financial loss on account of anticipated crop loss resulting from incidence of adverse weather parameters like rainfall, temperature etc.

In this context, Government of India under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) have funded for establishing Andaman Nicobar Agriculture Weather Network (ANAWN) by installing 30 Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) in 30 different locations scattered all over Andaman & Nicobar Islands. The AWS is networked to the Central Agromet Data Centre (ADC), located in the headquarters of Department of Agriculture, A&N at Port Blair.

The Department of Agriculture, Andaman & Nicobar Administration established the Andaman Nicobar Agriculture Weather Network in which 7 types of agriculture related weather parameters viz. air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, wind direction, atmospheric pressure and solar radiation is observed from 30 AWS are collected at hourly interval and hosted in the website.

Earlier, Shri. M.A.Salam, Director of Agriculture welcomed the gathering while the vote of thanks was proposed by Dr.G.S.Pandey, Joint Director (Agri.Engg)/Nodal Officer (IT)