Meghdoot – Bringing life-saving weather information to rural West Bengal, India

This case study belongs to a compendium of good practices and success stories in disaster risk reduction shared during the 2025 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GP2025). These stories reflect the real-world progress being made by governments, communities, and organizations around the world to reduce risk and build resilience.

In rural West Bengal, much like any other place with increasingly frequent and intense climate events, staying informed about the weather is the difference between safety and loss — especially during powerful cyclones. 

Meghdoot is a platform designed to bridge that gap. As a joint initiative of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), it delivers bilingual, localized climate information in formats that are easy for everyone to understand, including colorful infographics, short videos, and simple voice notes.

Notably, it is especially useful for farmers as it provides crop-specific advisories by aggregating information from agro-met field units across India. The app seamlessly aggregates district and crop-wise advisories issued by District Agro-meteorological Units (DAMUs) every Tuesday and Friday along with forecast and historical weather information for farmers. It also provides advice to farmers to take weather-sensitive decisions like the sowing of crops, pesticide and fertilizer application, irrigation scheduling and vaccination of animals.

The app advisory comes in location-specific languages including Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Odia and Hindi. The app is available on Google Play Store and App Store. Users have to register their name and location so that they can get region-specific information.

The app has been operational since at least early 2019, and has been downloaded more than 250, 000 times.

Source: Shared at Thematic Session 1-4 by Speaker Ms Nairwita Bandyopadhyay