What happened
The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare is rolling out the Weather Information Network and Data System (WINDS) to generate long-term hyperlocal weather data for crop insurance, agriculture advisories, and disaster risk resilience. WINDS builds a national network of Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) and Automatic Rain Gauges (ARGs).
Background and earlier position
Agriculture risk management depends on usable weather and rainfall information at local scale. WINDS is positioned as a Government initiative to expand automatic monitoring and build a dataset that can support crop insurance and advisory services, along with broader disaster risk resilience needs.
What changed now
WINDS adoption has expanded across seven States/Union Territories: Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Odisha, Puducherry, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. The latest implementation status includes approved installation sites, civil-work completion, and installed AWS/ARGs.
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