Committee recommends monetising weather data

Committee recommends monetising weather data

Part of: GS Prelims and GS-II- Governance

In News:

• Parliamentary committee on science, technology and environment recommended that the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) should explore monetisation of the weather data.
• The panel suggested that MoES could charge private users such as insurance companies that rely on data and information put out by the Ministry
• The India Meteorological Department, an organisation under the MoES, is tasked with gathering, analysing and disseminating meteorological data.

Did You Know?

• The MoES had been allotted ₹2070 crore for financial year 2020-21 up from ₹1901 crore last year.
• MoES didn’t have funds to acquire a Polar Research Vessel, as well as kickstart the Deep Ocean Mission. The mission proposes to explore the deep ocean similar to the space exploration started by ISRO about 35 years ago.
• India has been allotted a site of 75,000 sq. km. in the Central Indian Ocean Basin (CIOB) by the UN International Sea Bed Authority for exploitation of polymetallic nodules (PMN).
• PMN are rocks scattered on the seabed containing iron, manganese, nickel and cobalt.
• It has been estimated that 380 million metric tonnes of polymetallic nodules are available at the bottom of the seas in the Central Indian Ocean