01 September 2026, Mumbai: The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and the India Meteorological Department (IMD) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to integrate agro-meteorological data into the Data in Climate Resilient Agriculture (DiCRA) digital platform.
The partnership aims to make weather and agriculture-related information freely accessible to farmers, financial institutions, policymakers and researchers, helping them make decisions based on local weather and climate conditions.
Under the agreement, IMD will provide a range of weather products through DiCRA, including district and block-level forecasts, agrometeorological advisories, ground-based observations and weather alerts.
The information will be brought together through a dedicated Weather Portal within DiCRA. The portal will combine IMD’s weather information with DiCRA’s existing geospatial datasets covering soil moisture, vegetation health, crop conditions and climate vulnerability.
The integration is expected to provide more localized and decision-ready information at the district and block levels, particularly for agriculture and rural finance.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, NABARD Chairman Dr Shaji Krishnan V. said climate risk needs to be considered in development and financing decisions. He said the partnership between IMD’s scientific capabilities and NABARD’s institutional reach could help provide timely information to both farmers and financial institutions.
IMD Director General of Meteorology Dr Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said weather forecasting in India has improved significantly over the past decade, with forecasts increasingly available at more localized levels. He said the next challenge was ensuring that such information reaches farmers in a timely and usable form.
Through DiCRA’s open APIs and data infrastructure, IMD’s agrometeorological products will be converted into formats that can support agricultural decision-making. District-level advisories, seasonal risk alerts and weather-linked vulnerability assessments will be made available to farmers, researchers, policymakers, credit officers and field personnel.
The information is expected to be accessible through DiCRA’s web platform, mobile interface and API integrations. The partnership will also support NABARD’s weather portal within DiCRA, which is currently under development.
The MoU was signed by Sanjeev D. Rohilla, Chief General Manager, Department of Climate Action and Sustainability, NABARD, and Bikram Singh, Scientist-G and Head, Regional Meteorological Centre, Mumbai, IMD. The signing ceremony was attended by NABARD Chairman Dr Shaji Krishnan V., IMD Director General of Meteorology Dr Mrutyunjay Mohapatra and senior officials from both organisations, along with representatives of partner organisations.
About DiCRA
Data in Climate Resilient Agriculture (DiCRA) is an open digital platform providing access to geospatial datasets and analytics relevant to climate-resilient agriculture. It was developed through the UNDP Accelerator Lab India and a wider collaborative ecosystem and was recognized as a Digital Public Good in 2022.
Under a partnership between NABARD and UNDP to scale data-driven innovations in agriculture, NABARD hosts and maintains the DiCRA platform with technical support from UNDP.
The platform is designed to support evidence-based decision-making for climate-resilient agriculture by making relevant agricultural and climate data more accessible.
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