The Union Cabinet has approved the central sector scheme ‘Mission Mausam’ at an outlay of Rs 2,000 crore for over two years, the Lok Sabha was informed on Wednesday.

In a written reply, Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences Jitendra Singh said ‘Mission Mausam’ is envisaged to be a multi-faceted and transformative initiative to tremendously boost India’s weather and climate-related science, research, and services.

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It will help to better equip stakeholders, including citizens and last-mile users, in tackling extreme weather events and the impacts of climate change.

The mission’s focus will include improving the observations by augmenting various observational networks for providing highly accurate and timely weather and climate information across temporal and spatial scales, including monsoon forecasts, alerts for air quality, extreme weather events and cyclones, weather interventions for managing fog, hail, and rain, etc., capacity building and generating awareness.

The newly-launched ‘Mission Mausam’ is intended to augment the Doppler Weather Radar (DWR) network across the country for complete radar coverage and to enhance the accuracy of the weather forecasting system, the minister said.

He said the exact locations are being worked out for installing 87 more DWRs, 15 radiometers and 15 wind profilers across the country, to observe not only surface measurements but also upper atmosphere, to improve the weather forecast.

Currently, 39 Doppler Weather Radars are installed at various locations across the country to monitor rain and thunderstorms. The locations of these radars have been distributed in the best possible way to monitor severe weather conditions across the Indian region.