India Meteorological Department
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The India Meteorological Department is a government of India organisation that is responsible for meteorological observations, weather forecasts, detecting earthquakes etc. It is located in India's capital, New Delhi.
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[edit] Organisation
The department is headed by a Director General of Meteorology. There are a total of four junior Additional Directors General at New Delhi and one at Pune. Additionally, there are twenty Deputy Directors General, ten of them located in New Delhi.
There are six regional Met centres, each under a Deputy Director General. The six regional centres are located in Mumbai (Bombay), Chennai (Madras), New Delhi, Kolkata (Calcutta), Nagpur and Guwahati. There are also sub-units in each state capitals.
[edit] History
After a tropical cyclone hit Calcutta in 1864, and the subsequent famines in 1866 and 1871 due to the failure of the monsoons, it was decided to set up a Meteorological organisation under one roof.
H.F. Blanford was appointed the first Meteorological reporter to the government of India. In May 1889, Sir John Eliot was appointed as the first Director General of Observatories in the earstwhile capital Calcutta. The headquarters were shifted to Shimla, Pune and then to New Delhi.
[edit] Tasks
The Meteorological department undertakes observations, communications, forecasting and weather services. IMD was also the first organisation in India to have a message switching computer for supporting its global data exchange. In collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organisation, India was the first developing country in the world to have its own geostationary satellite, the INSAT, for continuous weather monitoring, (in particular cyclone warning) of the subcontinent.
[edit] Mandate
- To take meteorological observations and to provide current and forecast meteorological information for optimum operation of weather-sensitive activities like agriculture, irrigation, shipping, aviation, offshore oil explorations, etc.
- To warn against severe weather phenomena like tropical cyclones, norwesters, duststorms, heavy rains and snow, cold and heat waves, etc., which cause destruction of life and property.
- To provide meteorological statistics required for agriculture, water resource management, industries, oil exploration and other nation-building activities.
- To conduct and promote research in meteorology and allied disciplines.
- To detect and locate earthquakes and to evaluate seismicity in different parts of the country for development projects.
