“As far as forecasting is concerned, we do not want the private sector”

MRUTYUNJAY MOHAPATRA, Director-General, India Meteorological Department, speaks to DOWN TO EARTH on the changing business of weather

What role should the private sector play in the weather services industry?

What has been our principle so far is that the private sector should complement our work; they should not compete. There can be a collaboration. For example, in the case of thunderstorms and hailstorms we have been issuing early warnings. This year for the first time we are issuing early warning for lightning. For the dissemination of this early warning, we have an agreement with grassroot non-profits that are working in this field.

As far as forecasting is concerned, we do not want any private sector to come up as a forecaster as it is simply not possible for them to do it. They are indeed adding value to our warnings (from non-profits), also verifying our forecasts and explaining to the people about them. We are providing our forecasts to Red Cross and they are also utilising them to prepare for extreme events. There is a similar collaboration in place for heat action plans where we are giving the meteorological support.

With private forecasters in the fray, will the scientific rigour required for the field of meteorology come down?

If you look at the international arena, core weather forecasting is always done by the national weather service. It is not under private enterprise. If you want to forecast the weather over Delhi, then you cannot depend only upon what is happening over Delhi, you have to consider the weather conditions over Pakistan, Afghanistan and a lot of other places in Asia and beyond.

Is the IMD officially involved with the WMO open consultation process for weather data sharing between private, public and academic organisations that is going on?

In the last WMO-Congress in June this year, there was a discussion on this and the processes are going on. Nothing much has moved since then. In principle, public private partnership is being encouraged by WMO. But again it is left to individual countries to decide on this. WMO cannot interfere in the internal policy decisions of a country as it is an advisory body.

Many people believe that the IMD can do short, medium and long range forecasting for the country but the more localised forecasting can only be done by the private sector companies.

If somebody can give a highly localised forecast without considering large scale forecasts then I will say they are just bluffing. It is not possible right now. I have heard that private companies are claiming that they can provide village level forecasts and signed MoUs as well. Let’s see what happens.