The National Monsoon Mission and High Performance Computing programmes will provide a 50-fold benefit on the funds allocated for them, a NCAER report, released by Union Earth Science Minister Harsh Vardhan, said.
“For every rupee spent by the government on the National Monsoon Mission and High-Performance Computing programmes of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, the country would gain economic benefits worth fifty rupees, which is 50 times more benefit on the investment over the next five years period,” said the report, “Estimating the economic benefits of Investment in Monsoon Mission and High Performance Computing Facilities”.
The report, prepared by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), a Delhi-based independent, non-profit, economic policy research institute, cites the economic benefits as direct monetary gains to crop farmers, livestock rearers, and fishermen in the country.
According to the report, the investment of nearly Rs 1,000 crore in these programmes would provide benefits worth Rs 50,000 crore to nearly 1.07 crore below poverty line (BPL) agricultural households and 53 lakh BPL fishermen households.
The NCAER study was based on a face-to-face survey of 6,098 respondents including 3,965 crop farmers, 757 marine fishermen, and 1,376 livestock owners.
Along with this, responses from 2 lakh farmers were also collected through interactive voice response system (IVRS) to validate the findings of the face-to-face survey.
Data for both pre- and post-monsoon mission periods was incorporated which enabled analysis of the production and yield of major crops before and after the implementation of the National Monsoon Mission in 2015.
A total of 173 districts (of India’s total 732 districts) across 16 of the 29 states were considered for the study to appropriately represent agro-climatic zones, rain-fed areas, coverage of major crops, and incidence of extreme weather events in the country.
The National Monsoon Mission was launched with an aim to develop a state-of-the-art, dynamic monsoon prediction system for short, medium, and long-range forecasts. Its augmentation with High Performance Computing facilities has helped the country in achieving a paradigm shift in weather and climate modelling for operational weather forecasts.
Of India’s 15 major agro-climatic zones, 10 zones that experience all monsoon events ranging from drought to floods were covered by the NCAER study.
The 173 districts were chosen by prioritising areas which were rain-fed, and important for livestock-based interventions, and over 70 per cent of all major crops, both kharif and rabi, were covered.
