Telangana leads in integrated rainfall measurement in Karimnagar

Karimnagar: Telangana is in the forefront of integrated rainfall measurement, State Development Planning Society (TSDPS) Assistant CEO PB Srinivasa Chary said in an interview with The Hans India.

He said that recently TSDPS has been working on scientifically assessing the severity of natural calamity. Insurance companies can also avoid making excuses for not paying damages, even in the event of a natural calamity. With the introduction of automated weather stations in the field of TSDPS, the insurance companies are not allowed to be unfair towards farmers. He said there are 99 atomized weather stations in the erstwhile Karimnagar district. Srinivas said there should be at least two weather stations in each mandal, then only rainfall details and summer extremes would be properly calculated and informed to the government.

TSDPS focuses on automatic real time acquisition and dissipation of weather-related parameters and involve in running of weather forecast and flood models and drought monitoring. To facilitate data collection, TSDPS has installed 1044 AWS Telangana State-wide. 99 Automated weather stations located in Karimnagar, Rajanna Sircilla, Jagtial and Peddapalli districts only.

The Assistant CEO said that there are 64 global radiation sensors and soil moister sensor across the State to acquire data on real time basis. The AWS also measures global radiation and moisture at desired location for every one hour and transmit it in the form of SMS using GSM technology presently. He felt that at least one AWS for each mandal should be installed. River gauges the water level in the river at that particular location and transmits data at hourly interval, he explained. The data is being used by stake holders for proper planning and implementation of varied government programmes and schemes. AWS data is also being used by Agriculture Insurance company of India for implementation of weather-based crop insurance schemes for various crops in the district, Srinivas said.