What is the Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa (GKMS)?

The Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa (GKMS) is the India Meteorological Department's operational agromet advisory service — a district- and block-level weather-based farm advisory issued twice a week that translates the medium-range weather forecast into crop-, stage- and location-specific advice for farmers. It is run by IMD under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) in partnership with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), State Agricultural Universities (SAUs) and the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) system. GKMS bulletins cover rainfall, temperature, humidity, wind and cloud forecasts and translate them into farmer-facing advice on sowing, irrigation scheduling, nutrient and plant-protection application timing, harvest and post-harvest handling, and livestock and fishery management.

Who runs GKMS and under which ministry does it sit?

GKMS is operated by the Agricultural Meteorology Division of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Pune, which sits under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES). Field-level bulletin preparation is decentralised across ~130 Agromet Field Units (AMFUs) hosted at ICAR institutes and State Agricultural Universities and ~199 District Agromet Units (DAMUs) hosted at Krishi Vigyan Kendras. ICAR-CRIDA (Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture), Hyderabad, and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, are close scientific partners. The extension arm — dissemination through KVKs, State Agriculture Departments and cooperative networks — is coordinated with the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (MoA&FW).

What is the difference between an AMFU and a DAMU?

An Agromet Field Unit (AMFU) is the older, larger unit — hosted at an ICAR institute, a State Agricultural University or an ICAR All India Coordinated Research Project on Agrometeorology (AICRPAM) centre — with a network of ~130 AMFUs typically covering agro-climatic-zone-level or multi-district advisories. A District Agromet Unit (DAMU) is the block-level extension unit hosted at a Krishi Vigyan Kendra, added from around 2018 under the Monsoon Mission Phase-II expansion to take agromet advisories to a much finer spatial scale — ~199 DAMUs at KVKs were operationalised to produce block-level bulletins for 3,100+ blocks across the country. AMFUs contribute agro-climatic-zone science and act as anchoring units; DAMUs adapt the AMFU / IMD product to the specific soil-crop-farming-system mosaic of the district and its blocks.

How is a GKMS bulletin produced?

A GKMS bulletin is produced through a chained forecast-to-advisory workflow. IMD's numerical weather prediction system issues a medium-range (5-day) district-level weather forecast at roughly 12 km horizontal resolution, updated twice a week — Tuesday and Friday. AMFU / DAMU agromet scientists at ICAR institutes, SAUs and KVKs pull that forecast, overlay the current crop stage, phenology and standing farm-management concerns for that district or block, and prepare a bulletin covering the weather (rainfall probability, temperature range, relative humidity, wind speed and cloud cover) and the corresponding agromet advisory — sowing-window guidance, irrigation scheduling, nutrient-application timing, plant-protection advisories, harvest and post-harvest recommendations and livestock and fishery management. The bulletin is signed off, uploaded to the IMD Agrimet dashboard at imdagrimet.gov.in and pushed to farmers through the delivery stack.

How does a farmer receive GKMS advisories — what are the delivery channels?

GKMS advisories reach farmers through several parallel channels. The flagship mobile channel is the Meghdoot app — jointly built by IMD, ICAR-CRIDA and IITM Pune — available on Android and iOS, which delivers the block-level bulletin, weather forecast and advisory in the local language. The mKisan portal of the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare pushes GKMS advisories to registered farmers as SMS. The Damini lightning-alert app (by IITM Pune) provides real-time lightning nowcasts within a ~20 km radius, complementary to the medium-range GKMS advisory. Other channels include the Kisan Suvidha app, DD Kisan and All India Radio farm broadcasts, State Agriculture Department extension staff, KVK subject-matter specialists, and mausam.imd.gov.in / imdagrimet.gov.in for direct web access to the bulletin.

What is the geographical coverage of GKMS?

GKMS bulletins cover ~700+ districts through the AMFU network at the district level. With the DAMU rollout at KVKs, block-level bulletins have been extended to 3,100+ blocks across the country — the finer spatial scale needed for crop advisories in a country with the agro-climatic diversity of India. The exact number of AMFUs, DAMUs, districts and blocks is periodically updated as MoES / IMD and ICAR reconstitute the network — those figures should be verified against the current IMD Agrimet Division report on imdagrimet.gov.in rather than treated as fixed.

How does GKMS converge with NICRA and District Agriculture Contingency Plans?

GKMS is a core operational partner of the National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) project run by ICAR-CRIDA. NICRA's Climate Smart Villages in 151 climate-vulnerable districts use GKMS bulletins as the near-real-time weather-risk layer, and NICRA feedback from KVKs on how the advisory played out at village level improves the advisory content over successive seasons. District Agriculture Contingency Plans (DACPs) — ready-reckoners for what farmers and the State Agriculture Department should do under abnormal weather scenarios — are prepared by ICAR-CRIDA under NICRA for 650+ districts and are triggered in the field by GKMS bulletins, the IMD monsoon forecast and the Extended Range Forecast. In short, GKMS provides the medium-range weather-driven advisory, DACPs provide the pre-worked contingency response, and NICRA is the umbrella research network that connects the two.

What is the estimated economic benefit of agromet advisories to Indian farmers?

An oft-cited 2015 study by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), commissioned in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, estimated the annual economic benefit of agromet advisories to Indian farmers at approximately ₹13,331 crore, on the basis of avoided input wastage, better sowing and harvest timing, and reduced losses under adverse weather. This estimate is quoted widely in Ministry of Earth Sciences publications and Press Information Bureau releases but should be treated as an aggregate benefit-cost order of magnitude for a broad sample of adopting farmers rather than a precise ongoing revenue estimate. More recent evaluations by ICAR-CRIDA, individual AMFUs and academic groups have similarly reported favourable benefit-cost ratios for advisory-following farmers versus non-users, especially in rainfed and drought-prone districts.

How does a farmer subscribe to GKMS advisories?

The simplest routes are to install the Meghdoot app from Google Play or the Apple App Store, register with mobile number and select the state, district and block; register on the mKisan SMS portal at mkisan.gov.in to receive SMS-based GKMS bulletins in the local language; install the Damini app for real-time lightning alerts; and follow the block-level bulletin PDF for the district on imdagrimet.gov.in twice a week. Farmers in NICRA villages typically receive the advisory through the anchoring KVK and its DAMU. Farmers outside NICRA villages can approach the district KVK or the State Agriculture Department extension officer for GKMS advisory access and to be enrolled in the local dissemination list.

What are the known limitations of GKMS?

GKMS is a medium-range advisory service, not a nowcast or a farm-management guarantee. Forecast skill degrades with lead time and with the resolution needed for very local crop decisions — extreme convective events, hail and flash floods are hard to capture at ~12 km medium-range resolution and are better served by the Damini nowcasts and short-range warnings. DAMU coverage was expanded rapidly through the 2018–2022 period and its operational footprint has since fluctuated depending on funding cycles under the National Monsoon Mission and MoES — actual DAMU numbers on any given date should be verified. Uptake is uneven across states and depends heavily on last-mile extension: farmers who follow the advisory through KVK / State extension staff derive the largest benefit, while those who receive only an SMS may not act on the recommendation. Language and literacy constraints, and the challenge of matching an advisory to a specific field within a large block, remain open research and extension problems.

Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa (GKMS) — India's block-level agromet advisory service

The Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa (GKMS) is the India Meteorological Department's (IMD) district- and block-level agromet advisory service — a weather-based farm advisory issued twice a week (Tuesday and Friday) that translates IMD's medium-range weather forecast into crop-, stage- and location-specific advice on sowing, irrigation, nutrients, plant protection, harvest, livestock and fishery. GKMS is run by IMD under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) through a decentralised network of ~130 Agromet Field Units (AMFUs) hosted at ICAR institutes and State Agricultural Universities and ~199 District Agromet Units (DAMUs) hosted at Krishi Vigyan Kendras added from ~2018 under the National Monsoon Mission expansion. Advisories are pushed to farmers via the Meghdoot mobile app (jointly built by IMD, ICAR-CRIDA and IITM Pune), mKisan SMS, the Damini lightning-alert app, Kisan Suvidha, DD Kisan and All India Radio.

At a glance

What it is: IMD's district- and block-level agromet advisory service — twice-weekly bulletins that translate the 5-day medium-range weather forecast into farmer-facing farm-management advice.
Parent ministry: Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Government of India, through the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Agricultural Meteorology Division, Pune.
Partner ministry / agencies: Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (mKisan SMS, KVK / State Agriculture extension); ICAR (host of AMFUs and DAMUs); IITM Pune (Meghdoot, Damini).
Bulletin cycle: Tuesday and Friday every week, based on the ~12 km medium-range district-level weather forecast.
Network: ~130 Agromet Field Units (AMFUs) at ICAR institutes and SAUs; ~199 District Agromet Units (DAMUs) at KVKs.
Coverage: ~700+ districts through AMFUs; block-level bulletins for 3,100+ blocks through DAMUs (subject to periodic reconstitution — verify on imdagrimet.gov.in).
Delivery apps: Meghdoot (block-level advisory), Damini (lightning nowcast), mKisan SMS, Kisan Suvidha, DD Kisan, All India Radio.
Portals: mausam.imd.gov.in and imdagrimet.gov.in; numerical prediction at nwp.imd.gov.in; ICAR-CRIDA at crida.in.

Origin and history

The service originated as the Agromet Advisory Service (AAS) of IMD in 2008, building on decades of district-level farm-advisory work at ICAR institutes and State Agricultural Universities and the earlier Agrometeorology Advisory Bulletin effort of the Ministry of Agriculture. The AAS was subsequently expanded, rebranded as the Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa and progressively decentralised across an AMFU network of ~130 units hosted at ICAR institutes, SAUs and AICRPAM (All India Coordinated Research Project on Agrometeorology) centres. From around 2018, under the second phase of the National Monsoon Mission of MoES, a much finer block-level layer — the District Agromet Unit (DAMU) — was added at ~199 Krishi Vigyan Kendras across the country to take the advisory from the district to the block level and closer to the individual farming-system context in which a farmer actually takes decisions.

How a GKMS bulletin is produced

Bulletin production is a chained forecast → interpretation → advisory workflow:

Numerical weather forecast:IMD's NWP systems (Global Forecast System and the regional models operated at the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting, Noida, and IMD Pune) issue a 5-day district-level medium-range forecast at ~12 km horizontal resolution, updated twice a week. The forecast covers rainfall probability and quantum, maximum and minimum temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, and cloud cover.
Interpretation by AMFU / DAMU agromet scientists: Scientists at the ICAR institute, SAU or KVK pull the forecast, overlay the current crop calendar and phenological stage of the major crops in the district or block, layer on the standing farm-management concerns (moisture stress, disease pressure, pest outbreaks, irrigation scheduling), and prepare the district- or block-level bulletin.
Advisory content: The bulletin sets out (i) the weather forecast for the district / block for the next five days, and (ii) the corresponding agromet advisory — sowing-window guidance, irrigation scheduling, nutrient-application timing, plant-protection advisories with active-ingredient recommendations from the state package of practices, harvest and post-harvest recommendations, and livestock / fishery / poultry advisories where relevant.
Sign-off, upload and dissemination: The bulletin is signed off by the AMFU / DAMU nodal officer, uploaded to the IMD Agrimet Division dashboard at imdagrimet.gov.in and pushed into the farmer-facing delivery stack — Meghdoot, mKisan SMS, KVK WhatsApp groups, State Agriculture Department extension networks, DD Kisan, All India Radio and cooperative channels.

AMFUs, DAMUs and the network architecture

The GKMS network is deliberately decentralised so that the district- and block-level bulletin is authored close to the farming system in question rather than centrally at Pune or Delhi.

Agromet Field Unit (AMFU) — ~130 units. Hosted at ICAR institutes, State Agricultural Universities and AICRPAM centres. Each AMFU is typically responsible for one or more agro-climatic zones and issues the district-level GKMS bulletin for the districts falling in that zone. AMFUs are the older, larger units in the GKMS network and are the primary science anchors — they train DAMU staff, calibrate crop-weather relationships and generate zone-level products.
District Agromet Unit (DAMU) — ~199 units at KVKs. Rolled out in the National Monsoon Mission Phase-II expansion from about 2018, DAMUs sit at Krishi Vigyan Kendras and are responsible for the block-level bulletin — adapting the AMFU / IMD product to the specific soil-crop-farming-system mosaic of a district and its blocks. DAMUs are the most important operational link between GKMS and the farmer, because the KVK hosting the DAMU is the extension unit already trusted by farmers in that district.
IMD Agrimet Division, Pune. The central hub — aggregates AMFU / DAMU bulletins, runs the Agrimet portal, standardises formats and product templates, and interfaces with ICAR-CRIDA, IITM Pune and international partners.
ICAR-CRIDA and IITM Pune. Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA), Hyderabad, is the ICAR scientific partner and co-owns Meghdoot; the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, is the numerical modelling partner under MoES and co-owns Meghdoot and Damini.

Delivery channels — how the advisory reaches farmers

Meghdoot app. Joint product of IMD, ICAR-CRIDA and IITM Pune, available on Android and iOS. Delivers the block-level GKMS advisory and weather forecast in the local language. The most prominent farmer-facing channel for GKMS.
mKisan portal — SMS.Operated by the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare at mkisan.gov.in, mKisan pushes GKMS bulletins as SMS to registered farmers in the language and dialect of the state, targeted by district / block and, where possible, by crop of interest.
Damini app. Real-time lightning nowcast within a ~20 km radius, developed by IITM Pune. Complementary to the medium-range GKMS advisory — deals with the short-range, high-severity risks that a 5-day forecast cannot capture.
Kisan Suvidha app.Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare's general farmer mobile app; carries GKMS weather and advisory alongside market price, dealer, cold-storage and plant-protection information.
KVK / State Agriculture Department extension. The DAMU-hosting KVK, block agriculture officers and district agriculture officer disseminate the bulletin through farmer meetings, WhatsApp groups, cooperative societies and demonstration fields — this is where uptake is typically strongest.
DD Kisan and All India Radio. The public broadcaster carries district-level GKMS bulletins as part of the regular farm broadcast schedule, especially during monsoon preparation and rabi sowing windows.
Web / portal access. All bulletins are archived and browsable on imdagrimet.gov.in and reachable via mausam.imd.gov.in.

Coverage — districts, blocks and the DAMU expansion

GKMS bulletins historically cover the district level for ~700+ districts through the AMFU network. With the DAMU expansion at KVKs, block-level bulletins have been extended to 3,100+ blocksacross the country — the finer spatial scale needed for meaningful crop advisories in a country of India's agro-climatic diversity. The current number of active AMFUs, DAMUs, districts and blocks is periodically updated as MoES / IMD and ICAR reconstitute the network under successive funding cycles of the National Monsoon Mission and the Atmosphere & Climate Research — Modelling Observing Systems and Services (ACROSS) umbrella. Farmers, researchers and journalists should verify current figures against the latest IMD Agrimet Division report at imdagrimet.gov.in rather than treat the numbers here as fixed.

Convergence — NICRA, DACPs and the wider scheme portfolio

NICRA:the ICAR-CRIDA network project on climate-resilient agriculture converges with GKMS through the DAMUs at KVKs — NICRA's Climate Smart Villages are early adopters of the block-level advisory and give back farm-level feedback that improves the advisory over successive seasons.
District Agriculture Contingency Plans (DACPs): prepared by ICAR-CRIDA under NICRA for 650+ districts, DACPs are ready-reckoners for abnormal weather scenarios (delayed monsoon, mid-season drought, terminal drought, unusual heavy rainfall, floods, heat waves, cold waves, cyclones). GKMS bulletins are the operational trigger that puts DACPs into action each season through the district Real-Time Contingency Planning cells anchored by KVKs.
PMFBY and RWBCIS: the weather data and advisory infrastructure behind GKMS feeds directly into weather-index insurance product design and claims-settlement science under the crop-insurance schemes — realised rainfall, temperature and humidity from the AMFU network are inputs into weather-index products under RWBCIS.
Extended Range Forecast and short-range warnings: GKMS sits between IMD's short-range severe-weather warnings (Damini nowcasts, cyclone bulletins) and the Extended Range Forecast (weeks 2–4) — together the trio spans farm-management decisions from "spray tomorrow" to "plan the sowing window three weeks out".
Other schemes: GKMS-derived advisories are routinely used by field staff of PMKSY /Per Drop More Crop, Soil Health Card and the ATMA extension programme to time recommendations on irrigation, fertiliser and plant protection.

Governance and funding

Meteorological arm — Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES). IMD, IITM Pune and NCMRWF (National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting) are MoES organisations. Numerical weather prediction and the modelling pipeline are funded through MoES under the National Monsoon Mission, the Atmosphere & Climate Research — Modelling Observing Systems and Services (ACROSS) umbrella and successive IMD budget cycles.
Extension arm — Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (MoA&FW) and ICAR.The farmer-facing extension side of GKMS — DAMUs at KVKs, mKisan SMS, State Agriculture Department extension — draws on MoA&FW and ICAR budgets, including the KVK grant-in-aid.
Scientific partners. ICAR-CRIDA (Hyderabad) is the ICAR scientific partner and co-owns the Meghdoot app; IITM Pune is the numerical modelling partner and co-owns Damini and Meghdoot; AICRPAM (All India Coordinated Research Project on Agrometeorology) provides the SAU-side science network.

Economic benefit — the NCAER 2015 estimate

The most widely cited estimate of the economic benefit of agromet advisories in India is the NCAER 2015 study commissioned in collaboration with IITM Pune, which estimated the annual benefit to Indian farmers from agromet advisories at approximately ₹13,331 crore — based on avoided input wastage, better sowing and harvest timing, and reduced losses under adverse weather among adopting farmers. The estimate is quoted widely in Ministry of Earth Sciences publications, Economic Survey chapters and Press Information Bureau releases; it is best read as an aggregate order-of-magnitude benefit figure across a broad adopting-farmer sample, not as an ongoing annual revenue number. More recent evaluations by ICAR-CRIDA, individual AMFUs and academic groups have similarly reported favourable benefit-cost ratios for advisory-following farmers versus non-users, especially in rainfed and drought-prone districts.

How to subscribe — a farmer's quick guide

Install the Meghdoot app from Google Play or the Apple App Store; register with mobile number and select state, district and block to receive the block-level GKMS advisory.
Register on the mKisan SMS Portal (mkisan.gov.in) for GKMS bulletins by SMS in the local language — see our mKisan Portal deep-dive for the full five-channel stack (SMS, Kisan Suvidha app, USSD *51969#, Kisan Call Centre 1800-180-1551 and IVRS).
Install the Damini lightning-alert app for real-time nowcasts within ~20 km — complementary to GKMS.
Bookmark the block-level bulletin at imdagrimet.gov.in for the district and refresh every Tuesday and Friday.
Approach the district Krishi Vigyan Kendra or the block-level State Agriculture Department extension officer to be enrolled in the district GKMS WhatsApp / dissemination list.

Limitations and open questions

Forecast skill and resolution. GKMS is a medium-range advisory. Convective events, hail and flash floods are hard to capture at ~12 km resolution at a 3–5 day lead time, and are better served by Damini nowcasts and IMD short-range severe-weather warnings.
DAMU footprint fluctuates. The DAMU network was expanded rapidly through the 2018–2022 window and its operational footprint has since been reviewed in successive MoES / National Monsoon Mission funding cycles — current DAMU numbers should be verified against the latest IMD Agrimet Division report.
Last-mile uptake is uneven. Farmers who follow the advisory through KVK / State extension staff, cooperative channels or Meghdoot derive the largest benefit; farmers who only receive an SMS may not act on the advisory. Language, literacy and the challenge of matching a block-level advisory to an individual field within a heterogeneous block remain persistent constraints.
Advisory quality varies across AMFUs / DAMUs. The advisory is only as good as the crop-weather knowledge and local calibration at the AMFU or DAMU — capacity building of AMFU / DAMU scientists is a recurring emphasis in Ministry of Earth Sciences reviews.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa (GKMS)?: The Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa (GKMS) is the India Meteorological Department's operational agromet advisory service — a district- and block-level weather-based farm advisory issued twice a week that translates the medium-range weather forecast into crop-, stage- and location-specific advice for farmers. It is run by IMD under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) in partnership with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), State Agricultural Universities (SAUs) and the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) system. GKMS bulletins cover rainfall, temperature, humidity, wind and cloud forecasts and translate them into farmer-facing advice on sowing, irrigation scheduling, nutrient and plant-protection application timing, harvest and post-harvest handling, and livestock and fishery management.
Who runs GKMS and under which ministry does it sit?: GKMS is operated by the Agricultural Meteorology Division of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Pune, which sits under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES). Field-level bulletin preparation is decentralised across ~130 Agromet Field Units (AMFUs) hosted at ICAR institutes and State Agricultural Universities and ~199 District Agromet Units (DAMUs) hosted at Krishi Vigyan Kendras. ICAR-CRIDA (Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture), Hyderabad, and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, are close scientific partners. The extension arm — dissemination through KVKs, State Agriculture Departments and cooperative networks — is coordinated with the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (MoA&FW).
What is the difference between an AMFU and a DAMU?: An Agromet Field Unit (AMFU) is the older, larger unit — hosted at an ICAR institute, a State Agricultural University or an ICAR All India Coordinated Research Project on Agrometeorology (AICRPAM) centre — with a network of ~130 AMFUs typically covering agro-climatic-zone-level or multi-district advisories. A District Agromet Unit (DAMU) is the block-level extension unit hosted at a Krishi Vigyan Kendra, added from around 2018 under the Monsoon Mission Phase-II expansion to take agromet advisories to a much finer spatial scale — ~199 DAMUs at KVKs were operationalised to produce block-level bulletins for 3,100+ blocks across the country. AMFUs contribute agro-climatic-zone science and act as anchoring units; DAMUs adapt the AMFU / IMD product to the specific soil-crop-farming-system mosaic of the district and its blocks.
How is a GKMS bulletin produced?: A GKMS bulletin is produced through a chained forecast-to-advisory workflow. IMD's numerical weather prediction system issues a medium-range (5-day) district-level weather forecast at roughly 12 km horizontal resolution, updated twice a week — Tuesday and Friday. AMFU / DAMU agromet scientists at ICAR institutes, SAUs and KVKs pull that forecast, overlay the current crop stage, phenology and standing farm-management concerns for that district or block, and prepare a bulletin covering the weather (rainfall probability, temperature range, relative humidity, wind speed and cloud cover) and the corresponding agromet advisory — sowing-window guidance, irrigation scheduling, nutrient-application timing, plant-protection advisories, harvest and post-harvest recommendations and livestock and fishery management. The bulletin is signed off, uploaded to the IMD Agrimet dashboard at imdagrimet.gov.in and pushed to farmers through the delivery stack.
How does a farmer receive GKMS advisories — what are the delivery channels?: GKMS advisories reach farmers through several parallel channels. The flagship mobile channel is the Meghdoot app — jointly built by IMD, ICAR-CRIDA and IITM Pune — available on Android and iOS, which delivers the block-level bulletin, weather forecast and advisory in the local language. The mKisan portal of the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare pushes GKMS advisories to registered farmers as SMS. The Damini lightning-alert app (by IITM Pune) provides real-time lightning nowcasts within a ~20 km radius, complementary to the medium-range GKMS advisory. Other channels include the Kisan Suvidha app, DD Kisan and All India Radio farm broadcasts, State Agriculture Department extension staff, KVK subject-matter specialists, and mausam.imd.gov.in / imdagrimet.gov.in for direct web access to the bulletin.
What is the geographical coverage of GKMS?: GKMS bulletins cover ~700+ districts through the AMFU network at the district level. With the DAMU rollout at KVKs, block-level bulletins have been extended to 3,100+ blocks across the country — the finer spatial scale needed for crop advisories in a country with the agro-climatic diversity of India. The exact number of AMFUs, DAMUs, districts and blocks is periodically updated as MoES / IMD and ICAR reconstitute the network — those figures should be verified against the current IMD Agrimet Division report on imdagrimet.gov.in rather than treated as fixed.
How does GKMS converge with NICRA and District Agriculture Contingency Plans?: GKMS is a core operational partner of the National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) project run by ICAR-CRIDA. NICRA's Climate Smart Villages in 151 climate-vulnerable districts use GKMS bulletins as the near-real-time weather-risk layer, and NICRA feedback from KVKs on how the advisory played out at village level improves the advisory content over successive seasons. District Agriculture Contingency Plans (DACPs) — ready-reckoners for what farmers and the State Agriculture Department should do under abnormal weather scenarios — are prepared by ICAR-CRIDA under NICRA for 650+ districts and are triggered in the field by GKMS bulletins, the IMD monsoon forecast and the Extended Range Forecast. In short, GKMS provides the medium-range weather-driven advisory, DACPs provide the pre-worked contingency response, and NICRA is the umbrella research network that connects the two.
What is the estimated economic benefit of agromet advisories to Indian farmers?: An oft-cited 2015 study by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), commissioned in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, estimated the annual economic benefit of agromet advisories to Indian farmers at approximately ₹13,331 crore, on the basis of avoided input wastage, better sowing and harvest timing, and reduced losses under adverse weather. This estimate is quoted widely in Ministry of Earth Sciences publications and Press Information Bureau releases but should be treated as an aggregate benefit-cost order of magnitude for a broad sample of adopting farmers rather than a precise ongoing revenue estimate. More recent evaluations by ICAR-CRIDA, individual AMFUs and academic groups have similarly reported favourable benefit-cost ratios for advisory-following farmers versus non-users, especially in rainfed and drought-prone districts.
How does a farmer subscribe to GKMS advisories?: The simplest routes are to install the Meghdoot app from Google Play or the Apple App Store, register with mobile number and select the state, district and block; register on the mKisan SMS portal at mkisan.gov.in to receive SMS-based GKMS bulletins in the local language; install the Damini app for real-time lightning alerts; and follow the block-level bulletin PDF for the district on imdagrimet.gov.in twice a week. Farmers in NICRA villages typically receive the advisory through the anchoring KVK and its DAMU. Farmers outside NICRA villages can approach the district KVK or the State Agriculture Department extension officer for GKMS advisory access and to be enrolled in the local dissemination list.
What are the known limitations of GKMS?: GKMS is a medium-range advisory service, not a nowcast or a farm-management guarantee. Forecast skill degrades with lead time and with the resolution needed for very local crop decisions — extreme convective events, hail and flash floods are hard to capture at ~12 km medium-range resolution and are better served by the Damini nowcasts and short-range warnings. DAMU coverage was expanded rapidly through the 2018–2022 period and its operational footprint has since fluctuated depending on funding cycles under the National Monsoon Mission and MoES — actual DAMU numbers on any given date should be verified. Uptake is uneven across states and depends heavily on last-mile extension: farmers who follow the advisory through KVK / State extension staff derive the largest benefit, while those who receive only an SMS may not act on the recommendation. Language and literacy constraints, and the challenge of matching an advisory to a specific field within a large block, remain open research and extension problems.

Official sources

India Meteorological Department — mausam.imd.gov.in (parent portal, GKMS bulletins, forecasts).
IMD Agrimet Division — imdagrimet.gov.in (block-level bulletins, AMFU / DAMU network, advisory archives).
IMD Numerical Weather Prediction — nwp.imd.gov.in (medium-range district forecast used by AMFUs / DAMUs).
ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad — crida.in (ICAR scientific partner; Meghdoot co-owner; DACP preparation).
NICRA project — nicra-icar.in (Climate Smart Villages; DAMU-KVK convergence).
Ministry of Earth Sciences — moes.gov.in (parent ministry; National Monsoon Mission, ACROSS umbrella).
mKisan SMS portal — mkisan.gov.in (Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare; GKMS SMS delivery).
Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune — tropmet.res.in (Meghdoot and Damini co-owner).

This page summarises the operating architecture of GKMS drawn from public IMD, Ministry of Earth Sciences, ICAR-CRIDA and NICRA material. The AMFU / DAMU count, district and block coverage and delivery-channel footprint evolve with successive funding cycles of the National Monsoon Mission and IMD budget cycles — farmers, KVK staff, State Agriculture Department officers and researchers should verify current figures on imdagrimet.gov.in and crida.in before quoting them. The NCAER 2015 benefit estimate of ~₹13,331 crore per year is quoted here as it is quoted in MoES material — an aggregate order-of-magnitude estimate for adopting farmers, not a precise ongoing revenue figure.