Error-proof IMD

The regular failure of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) to accurately predict the monsoon is so embarrassingly obvious that it has become the butt of jokes even in the agriculture ministry. For some of its regional predictions, the IMD provides a negative and positive margin of error expressed as a percentage of the long period average (LPA). Of late, the margins have been so wide as to lose all significance. One official suggested that this was a strategy to cover its failings. “If the error margin is so huge there is no way the IMD can go wrong, because any rain would invariably have to fall within the range,” he said.