Affordable local weather stations from NIRD hub

Hyderabad: Temple towns, tourist spots, resorts, multi-starred hotels and local bodies can now establish their own smart and low-cost weather stations to provide weather forecasts of their area to the tourists, pilgrims, customers, farmers and denizens.

Coming in the combination of tri-colours, the smart weather station runs on wind and solar energy and it is one among several innovative technology products unveiled by the Centre for Innovation and Appropriate Technologies (CIAT).

The centre is part of the School of Science, Technology and Knowledge Systems (SSTKSY) of the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (NIRDPR).

Speaking to The Hans India, NIRDPR Director-General W R Reddy said the innovations and research at all the schools and centres of the institute are mainly meant to facilitate the establishment of appropriate eco-friendly rural technologies and systems, to empower villagers.

As part of this, the institute has been encouraging innovators who are coming up with ideas to provide solutions to the issues concerning the people in villages as well as empowering the Panchayat Raj institutions across the country.

It was against this backdrop that the CIAT has come up with the low-cost weather station using a hybrid model, using the wind and solar energy to run it.

The primary focus of the weather stations is to provide weather situation in an area of two to three kilometres from the place it is installed.
But, it has a wider application which can be used in other places to provide weather situation in the form of alerts to the people to plan their itineraries.

The idea to come up with this weather station was that the general daily weather forecasts give the prevailing weather situation at mandal, district and state-level details. However, weather situation being a dynamic one, it might vary from village to village or mandal to mandal in a district.

The CIAT innovation will precisely give the weather situation within and the surrounding areas of a village. In turn, people would know the forecasts on humidity, moisture levels as well as inputs like dry, sunny, rainy and hot conditions in their area and to plan and prepare their routines. The information will also come handy in their agricultural operations too.

Replication of the technology in places like temple towns, tourist spots and resorts will help the management of the temples, resorts, hotels and tourist departments to flash on weather conditions prevailing in their locations for the people coming there or to plan their activities. 

The weather station comes with a price tag of around Rs 10,000, and the CIAT could also facilitate to customise the weather stations to the requirements of the different users.

By VRC Phaniharan