Question
Which of the following statements about India’s ‘Bharat Forecast System’ is/are correct?
1. Its objective is to generate forecasts at the Panchayat cluster level.
2. It was developed by IIT Delhi.
Explanation
Statement 1 — Correct: The Bharat Forecast System (BFS) aims to provide hyper-local weather forecasts down to the Panchayat-cluster level, supporting agriculture, rural communities and disaster management. It uses a 6 km × 6 km grid, improving upon India’s earlier 12 km-resolution models.
Statement 2 — Incorrect: BFS was developed by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, an autonomous institute under the MoES, not IIT Delhi. It is supported by high-performance computing infrastructure, including the Arka supercomputer at IITM and Arunika at NCMRWF, Noida.
Therefore, only Statement 1 is correct.