New Delhi, March 10 The services of the 199 district agro-meteorological units, which provide crucial and detailed weather-related advice to farmers at the block level, will be discontinued by March 20, according to an order issued by the India Meteorological Department.
According to the order issued last week, since the approved scheme period was drawing to a close and there were no provisions for continuation beyond March 2026, the services of the district agro-meteorological units (DAMUs) had to be concluded.
"It shall be ensured that all admissible salary dues and other related expenditures are fully settled within the current financial year (2025-26), and that no financial or contractual liability is carried forward beyond the approved scheme period," the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said in the order.
This development comes nearly two years after the IMD said that the services of DAMUs would not be extended beyond the 2023-2024 financial year.
The decision was made after a senior advisor to the Niti Aayog in August 2023 advised reevaluation of the “necessity of providing staff at each DAMU” and suggested that the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) could have “centralised units instead of field units as the collection of data is automated”.
However, the services of DAMUs continued even after the end of FY 2023-2024, as some of the DAMU employees went to court and obtained a stay on the 2024 IMD order.
"DAMU manpower whose services are being continued pursuant to the directions of the Hon'ble high courts… until further orders or up to the culmination of the approved project period, i.e., March 2026, whichever is earlier," the latest IMD order said.
In January 2025, M Ravichandran, secretary in the MoES, had told